Go Be A King
by samchandler1986
Summary: "You weren't there in the final days of the War. You never saw what was born."
1. Prologue

The dull _crump_ of a distant explosion precedes a rain of dust from the shelter ceiling. Seren used to flinch when the bombs made ground. Now she lies listless on the packed earth floor, praying for silence. Kastral is still wearing his headset, tuned to an emergency channel that has broadcast only static for the past two weeks. She wonders how he can bear it, hissing in his ear. Perhaps it's better than the steady thump of explosives.

Her brother blinks, touching a hand to his earphone. "Seren," he says. His voice is hoarse. She wonders how long it has been since either of them last spoke. "Sen, they're broadcasting again."

She is at his side in an instant. Obediently he turns out a speaker so she can hear the announcement too; resting her head against his.

"Citizens," says the voice in her ear, tinny and thin. "Lifeboat protocols have been enacted. You are urged to evacuate immediately. Citizens. Lifeboat protocols have been enact-"

She tears the headset away as the message repeats itself. His hands have found hers, clutching painfully tight. "They can't be serious?"

She shakes her head, disbelieving. "There's no way we can get to Arcadia through the bombing."

"M-maybe they'll send some fighters over?" he says haltingly. They both know it's a hopeless fantasy.

"Maybe," she pretends to agree, biting the inside of her mouth until she tastes blood. Anger is boiling up now, through the layers of numb shock. She wants to pop the capsule lid on their shelter; take the pathetic bolt guns the Home Defence Service issued three weeks ago and run, screaming defiance. Better than waiting to die here in the dust.

Kastral is crying, she realises, and some of her anger ebbs. She embraces him. "Shhh. It's okay. It's okay, brother. We'll get through this."

"How?" he shudders, "They've left us Sen; left us to die."

"Yes," she says, surprised at the sound of her own bitterness. "They have. But that's not what we're going to do, is it?"

He makes a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "With two shoddy bolt guns and a busted emergency radio between us?"

"Well, we wouldn't want it to be easy."

He manages a watery chuckle at this piece of gallows humour. "No, I suppose not."

She opens her mouth to speak again but her words are lost to an ominous rumble. At first she thinks a bomb has landed close to their shelter, but the roar continues; rising in pitch. The shelter starts to judder.

Her brother redouble his grip. "What's happening?"

"I don't know!" She's never experienced an earthquake before, but imagines this is what one must feel like. The shaking is becoming unbearable, vibrating them across the floor like peas in a drum.

Kastral is screaming with fear. "Brother!" she shouts, over his cries. "Kastral, hold on!" She screws her eyes shut tight.

 _Please_ , she thinks, _Please, at least let it be quick._


	2. Clara in the TARDIS

Years of maltreatment have chewed the screw heads on the generator casing to uselessness. She purses her lips, considering her next course of action. There's always the prototype, of course, but it is still somewhat experimental, and a malfunction right on top of the fuel cells would be… unfortunate. She is still considering the problem when she hears them; the sound of supressed giggles and mutual sushing approaching.

Intruders in the Repair Shop. Again.

She should probably sound the alarm. The problem with that, of course, is that technically she is _herself_ an intruder; working after hours in the Citadel when she should have clocked out with the rest of the technicians hours ago. Better perhaps to hide, at least for the moment, until she has a better idea of what the world's least subtle burglars are planning.

Of course, they chose the _unlocked_ door out of the massed ranks of possible targets. Cursing her stupidity for not sealing herself inside, she clambers further down the ladder under the console. She can see their feet through the grating. They number six, itself a clue that they intend to go for a joy ride. She bites her thumb. Perhaps this is just a silly bet, a childish dare, and they will soon return to their world and leave hers in peace.

"Go on then Gryf," says the owner of a pair of boots closest to the console, "You've got us this far."

A giggle. Then a gasp as a second pair of feet walk over to the rotor. "Gryf, you're not serious?"

"Course I'm serious." She assumes this third voice belongs to the eponymous Gryf; high and piping. "Come and take up your stations."

"If we get caught…" This from the pair of boots nearest the door; halting, sounding nervous.

 _Go on_ , she wills, _Lose your nerve!_ She has better things to do today than find herself lost in space with a bunch of Academy brats.

"We won't get caught," assures Gryf, "And if we do, you can tell them I made you do it."

There is laughter from the group and this, and the nervous boots move to take up their place at the console with the others. _Damn_. Perhaps she'll get lucky; perhaps none of them have received the Imprimatur yet, and they will find themselves confined to scratching at the surface technology…

The rotor begins to move, with a familiar wheezing and groaning. She _loves_ that sound, but for the first time her hearts sinks to hear it.

"Where are we going?"

"Mount Perdition, a century from now," asserts Gryf, confidently.

"Why Perdition?" asks the first speaker.

"I wanted something big for you to aim at, Evin."

"Hah, okay. Fair enough. Co-ordinates are locked in."

"Then let's go!"

The TARDIS lurches violently; repairs are nowhere near complete and they are flying without primary stabilisers.

"Rassilon's tits, you having a stroke or something?" snaps one of the thieves.

"It's not me," growls Evin, "There's something wrong with the stabiliser systems."

There is a shriek from one of the others. "The bloody rotor handle!"

"What about it?"

"It _burned_ me, look."

 _That'll be the faulty heat shield_ , she thinks; item two hundred and seven on her ever growing repair list.

"Okay, okay, everyone just… calm down," says Gryf, though she sounds anything but. "Where do the sensors say we are?"

"I don't know," replies their hapless navigator, approaching hysteria, "The readout's got a crack in it, look."

The cloister bell begins to toll, causing an outbreak of minor profanity and one or two screams. _And now I'm out of options_.

"Everybody stop!"

They stare at her openly, grease splattered apparition from the bowels of the TARDIS.

"Who're you?" manages the shortest, hoarse with shock.

"That is _really_ not what's important right now, Gryf," she says. The others share scandalised looks at her use of the young Lord's name, as if she is privy to arcane knowledge rather than a mere eavesdropper on their conversation. She strides over to the navigation screen, swinging the monitor towards her to see just how bad the situation is.

The cloister bell tolls again. _Oh, it's bad_ , she thinks. They have lost their temporal anchor in the vortex, a critical error she's only read about, never seen. The TARDIS lurches violently again, sending all but her sprawling to the floor. She swears under her breath. Elderly safety systems have shielded them twice from materialising in the middle of a planet's core; now their power is drained.

"We need to dematerialise," she snaps, "Now!"

"The rotor handle though, it's too hot to touch!" The burnt one holds out his blistered palm as evidence.

"Idiots," she snarls, pulling off her quilted jacket and wrapping it around her hand. She pulls the glowing handle down. The wheezing groan of the TARDIS changes pitch, but they are still very much in flight.

"What does that mean?" asks Gryf.

 _That we are probably all about to die_. "Everybody lie down and hold on!" She flings herself down the ladder, back into the guts of the TARDIS engine. A manual dematerialisation is their only hope. A theoretical possibility, the subject of academic debate in the technician's break room. _I did always want to try one_ , she thinks ruefully.

Her fingers close around the prototype in her trouser pocket _._ She offers up a prayer to any deities that may happen to be listening, points her sonic screwdriver, and _hopes_.

* * *

"Okay," Clara says, running her fingers over the TARDIS console, "What have I forgotten?"

"Gyroscopic stabiliser on?"

"Yep."

"Chronometric altimeters?"

"Reading steady."

"Harmonic generator primed?"

"I've got my hand on it," she says, indicating the lever with a nod.

The Doctor grins from the other side of the rotor. "Then I'd say you're ready to go."

 _Here goes nothing_ , she thinks, and flips the generator switch. There is a moment of complete silence as they wait for the TARDIS to spin into dematerialisation.

"Aaah, come on," she says, as they remain stubbornly parked. "What did I do wrong?"

He frowns, studying the console display carefully. "One last crucial ingredient."

"What's that?"

He gives one of the side panels a solid thump, and the TARDIS groans into life.

Clara shakes her head. "See, from you that's mechanical repair. If _I_ start hitting her she'll probably hold it against me."

"Oh, don't be so gloomy. She's moved on from teasing you now. She likes you. Most of the time."

"Hmm," she replies, "We'll see if I'm allowed to take a shower any time soon, that's all I'm saying."

The rotor stills. He holds out his hand, long fingers pointing to the doors. "You first, Miss Oswald. This is your trip, after all."

She cannot help but smile at those words, at the realisation that she has just moved them through time and space. _Not bad for a lass from Blackpool_ , she thinks. She throws open the doors and steps out into brilliant sunlight.

"Oh," she says, bright mood evaporating as she blinks in the light. She was aiming for the Market Place of Gillespie. The space station overlooks a red-giant star; housing a lively mixture of pan-galactic traders, interstellar shoppers and other seekers of adventure. It has served as a point of departure for several of their previous escapades. Instead they seem to have landed in a desert.

"Well _this_ is strange," he says, flicking the sonic screwdriver.

"Where are we?"

"No idea," he replies, "Not where you asked the TARDIS to go, that's for sure. She must have come across this place on route and decided to make a detour."

She sighs. "Figures. First time piloting by myself and she decides to take herself out for a spin."

"The TARDIS hardly ever does that, though," he says, shielding his eyes from the blazing sun to try and get a better sense of their position.

She pulls sunglasses out of her pocket. They are in the middle of a dune sea, orange sand stretching in every direction. Already sweating despite her summer dress, she ponders going back inside for sunscreen. "What're you talking about? Last week you were aiming for a weekend in nineteenth century France and we ended up making cave art with Neanderthals."

"Well, it was the same _place_ , in fairness. Just a few years out."

"A few hundred _thousand_ years," she corrects. "Are we staying? Because if we are, I need a hat."

He gives the sonic screwdriver another shake. "I'm not picking up any signs of life," he admits. "I'll do a scan-"

He is cut off by a rumbling noise; the sand shifting suddenly under her feet. She stumbles, flinching at the heat of the dune when she puts out a hand to catch herself. "Ouch! Doctor, what's happening?"

"No idea," he says cheerfully. The rumbling is growing louder, sand trickling away down the slope.

She manages to find her feet again; reluctant to sound the retreat but aware the wait for the Doctor to make a cautious and sensible decision is likely to be a long one. A curious gap is opening up beneath the TARDIS, as if she is suspended in the air while the sand around her drains away. The rumble is become a roar. "Should we…?"

"Yes," he agrees, eyes widening, "You might have a point." He steps towards his ship just as she starts to dematerialise.

"Doctor! No, don't let her-"

"It's not me!" he shouts, and her stomach lurches at the sudden fear in his voice. "No, no, no! Don't do that!" He tries to grab hold of the TARDIS door handles, but his hands pass straight through her fading outline. She is gone. They stare at one another for a moment, horror struck. Then the side of the dune shears away.

She rolls, over and over, carried on a tide of burning sand. There is no time to reach for him, no time to shout. Powder cascades over her, burying her. She tries to fight her way back to the surface, out of the suffocating heat. The world is growing dark, up and down confused in her tumble. She opens her mouth to scream, but there is grit in her mouth, in her nose, choking her; trying to fill her lungs. Light fires across her strobing vision; her thrashing becoming feeble despite her best efforts.

 _Not going to die here_ , she tells herself, and it seems the Universe is listening. She is suddenly falling again; seemingly thrown up into the air and now plummeting back to earth. She can breathe at least, spitting grit and screaming; until she slams into the ground and the world goes dark for a time.


	3. Not Quite An Echo

She is armpit deep in a shattered power cell when they return, earlier than she was expecting. She drops her spanner, wiping a smudge of grease across her forehead as she hurries to the door.

"Are you okay? What happened?"

Gryf pulls down the scarf that covers her mouth and nose, face streaked with desert dust. "We found someone," she gasps.

Evin staggers in to the console room, struggling with the weight of the body he carries over his shoulder. She helps him lower the unconscious man to the floor. He is tall and thin; caked in fine sand that has turned his hair and face chalk white.

"Anyone we know?" she asks.

Evin shakes his head. "Not him. But you're going to love the other one."

"Other one?"

Their third patrolman, Horas, enters on cue. His burden is smaller; carried like a child in his arms. Even under all the dust she recognises the face of the rescued girl. How could she not? It's her face, the one that greets her every morning, when she meets her eyes in the bathroom mirror and reminds herself: _You're still here_.

"She's _me_ ," she says slowly, turning her own head to match the lolling angle of the unconscious copy.

"We hope," says Evin darkly.

She purses her lips, but the young Time Lord has a point. "Take them both through to the infirmary. We'll set up a containment field. Just in case."

* * *

"I thought you might be in here."

She jumps at the sound of Evin's voice, breaking the hush of the sick bay. The lights are dim, mostly to save power, but she hopes it brings a restful peace to the patients.

"Did you?" His supercilious tone crawls under her skin at the best of times, shortening her temper. _He has every right to come in here_ , she reminds herself; irritated nonetheless at his disruption.

"Is it safe, do you think, for you to sit _behind_ the containment field?"

Another thinly veiled barb. "They're hurt," she says, trying not to sound defensive, "Company is good when you're healing."

He almost rolls his eyes, possessing just enough self-preservation to check his condescension. "Right," he says flatly, which is almost as bad. "I'll bear that in mind."

"Evin, if you have a problem, spit it out," she says shortly.

"I think you're letting the fact she looks like you cloud your judgement," he snaps, pointing to the duplicate. "We've no idea if that's your future self or something far worse. They could be dangerous, _very_ dangerous, and your expertise is the only thing holding this TARDIS together. Without you, we die. And I don't want to die."

She draws in a breath. "Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you stole a broken TARDIS," she returns evenly. "And trust me, if we found someone with _your_ face lying in the dust out there, you'd give them the benefit of the doubt too."

"I'd _never_ let my emotions cloud my judgement like this."

She examines the long fingered hand of the sleeping man minutely as she considers his statement; biting the inside of her cheek until the urge to slap him silly has diminished. "No," she says sadly, "I don't suppose you would."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm not a Time Lord, Evin. I don't have your breeding and I _certainly_ don't have your education."

She takes the stranger's hand between her own, squeezing it gently, reassuring. _I_ know _you_ , she thinks, even though his face is unfamiliar. She's never been so sure of anything in her life.

Evin laughs, still angry. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Say something like that and still make it sound like an insult."

 _Because I mean it as one_ , she doesn't say. She shrugs. "Practice?"

The man's fingers twitch under hers. "Is he waking up?"

"I think so," she grins. The young Lord draws his bolt gun, and she makes a noise of irritation at this melodramatic flourish. "Put it _down_ , Evin. If he's Meanwhile it's not going to make a difference anyway."

The stranger opens his eyes, finding her face and smiling at her. "Clara," he says, voice hoarse, clearly relieved. "You're okay."

She swallows. "It's Cora," she corrects, "But close. Do you know where you are?"

"No idea," he says muzzily, eyes glassy for a moment, before he refocuses on her with frightening intensity. "What do you mean, Cora?" He pulls his hand back sharply, struggling up onto his elbows. "No. No… this. This can't be real."

"Calm down," she says raising her hands to show she is peaceable, "Your friend is here." She indicates the still sleeping woman that shares her face.

He throws off his bed covers and crosses to his companion, touching a gentle thumb to her cheek before finding the pulse in her neck, clearly reassuring himself she is alive.

"She's suffered a primary cardiac failure," she hears herself saying, "But she's stable."

"Primary cardiac… what are you talking about? And why are you wearing her face? Stop that. Stop that _right_ now. Tell me where I am. And _you_ , idiot with the bolt gun; stop waving it around before you hurt someone."

He should look ridiculous, clad only in a medical gown, eyes wild as he barks his orders. Instead she finds she has taken a step backwards, away from him and his ferocious scowl. Behind her Evin lowers his weapon.

"I'm not wearing her face," she says slowly, "She's wearing mine. As to where you are; you're inside a TARDIS. My crew rescued you."

"No," he says, shaking his head. "That's not possible."

"It is possible because it's where you are; I promise. Now, I think it's my turn to ask a question."

His mouth quirks, clearly amused by her boldness. "Go on then." A challenge, she senses, his blue eyes flinty beneath beetling brows.

"Who are you and how did you get here?"

He stares at her for a moment in frank disbelief, and then laughs. "Okay. I'll play your game. I'm the Doctor. We were travelling to Market Place of Gillespie and we ended up here instead. There was some kind of earthquake."

"Sounds like you got caught in a time slip," says Evin. She can barely hear him, her chest tight, stomach contracting painfully.

"Time slip?" says the Doctor, oblivious to her sudden distress, "What do you mean by that?"

Perhaps he doesn't remember. It's been fifty years for her, of a life lived linearly; day after day of the same work within the same four walls. Who knows how long it's been for him; how many times he's changed his face since that day she changed the target of his larceny? Perhaps he's walked so many worlds he's simply forgotten the lowly Technician that helped set him wandering.

And yet… and yet the girl. His companion that he showed such compassion for; the woman that shares her face. How can he have forgotten her when he is travelling with a copy?

"Gallifrey is cracked," continues Evin.

" _Gallifrey?_ " There is real fear in the Doctor's face now. "This isn't… this _can't_ be…"

"It doesn't make any sense to us, either Doctor. We were in the Vortex and then the temporal anchor was _slipped_ somehow, and we can't−"

He stops abruptly as the Doctor staggers slightly, groping for the bedframe. He sits down heavily, corpse pale. "This is _real_ ," he says, as if he is only now starting to believe. "I'm here. I'm _home_."

"I'm not sure I'd go that far, Doctor," she says softly. "Evin isn't exaggerating. Something terrible has happened."

"I know," he says, turning his eyes up to meet hers. She quails under his awful stare. "It was me."

* * *

She can hear him, giving instructions to someone, which means all is probably right with the Universe. She gives this proposition some more thought. _Well, probably not_ right, she amends. _If he's giving instructions things are probably_ actually _going to hell in a handbasket, but at least he's trying to fix it._

The world fades away again for a while. When she opens her eyes at last she finds him standing over her, a little too much relief in his expression. "Was it that bad?" she asks, voice cracking.

"Don't be so melodramatic," he sniffs, "You're going to be fine."

She dimly assembles the clues; low light, soft beeping, comfortable mattress. Waking up from unplanned unconsciousness with him generally entails a prison cell or a hospital bed. This feels very much like the latter.

"Did you find the TARDIS?" she murmurs. Her recently re-attained consciousness is surprisingly difficult to hang on to; she feels like she has been kicked by a horse.

"No," he says gravely, "I'm afraid not. On the plus side, we did find someone else's."

His words cut through even her muzzy head. "What?" She tries and fails to sit up. "Doctor, are we…?"

"On Gallifrey? It certainly seems that way."

She smiles. "That's… well, that's fantastic." He nods enthusiastically, smile just a little too manic. It's a long while since he's tried to lie to her like this, and this time around she recognises his tells. "Okay, _not_ fantastic. What aren't you telling me?" Adrenalin has blown away at least some of the cobwebs. Wincing, she pushes herself upright.

"Hang on," he says, "I can give you something for the concussion."

He fumbles about in one of the sick-bay cabinets as she takes in their surroundings. There is indeed a strong similarity to their TARDIS's infirmary, but with an air of shuttered neglect rather than crisp cleanliness. He produces a hypo-spray at last. She turns her head, baring her neck, hoping she won't live to regret his ministrations.

After a moment the feeling that she is hanging onto wakefulness by her fingernails ebbs; the hazy edges of the world coming into focus. Fingers crossed she hasn't also been turned bright blue, or fallen victim to some other ridiculous side effect he didn't deign worthy of mention. She swings her legs out of bed, still a little unsteady on her feet, as she takes a few faltering steps towards the door.

He slips his arm around her waist to support her. She grits her teeth, irritated she requires his assistance but sensible enough to accept it is probably required. She blinks in surprise at the familiar corridor beyond.

"We really are on a TARDIS," she says, wonderingly.

"That's not even the strangest part," he says darkly.

They enter the console room; a slightly more minimalist version of their home, lacking his leather armchair and bookshelves. The darkness is more pronounced here. Her rotor is dead, electrical innards disgorged onto the grated floor. "What happened to her?"

"They crashed," he says, "Badly. She should have died here."

He looks sickened. The idea of it twists in her chest too, wondering what has become of their twin to this stricken ship.

"But she didn't," she says, trying to reassure herself as much as him.

"They had a good engineer."

There is something suspicious in his expression, a line between his eyebrows that he cannot unwrinkled; a tension that scares her. "And who was that?" she says slowly, feeding him the line, almost against her will.

"That would be me," says a small voice, a slim figure stepping forward into the circle of light cast by the yellow emergency lamps on the console desk.

She frowns, unable to tear her eyes away from the copy that stands before her. "How? How is this possible? Are you… from my future?"

The doppelganger shakes her head, echoing Clara's shock. There is something unsettling about her own-other face, matching her confused expression and yet somehow _not_. After a moment Clara realises it is because the double is _not_ in fact a reflection; her features are backwards to how she is used to seeing them in the mirror.

"I'm not you," she says, "At least, not exactly." Her voice, too, is hers and yet not. Higher than it should be, stripped of her Lancashire vowels. Like an old fashioned BBC radio announcer.

"You're… you were… You were born on Trenzalore," Clara says, understanding dawned, "When I jumped into the Doctor's time stream." _You're an echo_ , she wants to say. Yet seeing this living, breathing person standing in front of her it suddenly seems a terrible impoliteness to suggest that _she_ −barely able to stand and dressed like a child in a nightie−should somehow have primacy.

"Apparently." There is a muscle working in the woman's jaw, one Clara recognises the tick and the tension of; she is grinding her teeth to reign in her temper. Strange to see it from the outside.

"Can we… touch?" she asks, not wishing to bring about the end of the multiverse by paradox or some such Doctorish nonsense.

"Yes," he says, sounding surprised that they might want to.

Clara holds out her hand, determined not to be the kind of person unable to get on with her own clones. "Clara Oswald," she says, "Thank you for saving us."

The palm under hers is callused and hard; fingernails black with engine grease. A palpable difference between them, a point of unique identity to hold onto.

"Coraldiaslowswan," says the engineer, a touch shamefacedly, "But, uh, everyone calls me Cora."

"Time Lord names, huh?" She intends it as a joke, to break the tension a little, but Cora's weak smile in return suggests she has made a faux-pas.

"Gallifreyan, anyway," she mumbles.

Clara is saved from further embarrassment by the sudden blare of an alarm. They all flinch, Cora and the Doctor immediately turning to the broken console.

"What's going on?" Clara asks.

"Another time slip," he replies, reaching for a crank handle.

"Hey," she chides, staying his questing hand with hers, "Not your ship, remember?"

"Sorry, force of habit."

"It's okay," replies Cora, "I could do with some help that actually has a clue."

"Do you still have a working gyroscopic stabiliser?"

"Ye-es, but I don't see how that will−"

"Have you tried running the primary temporal anchoring systems through the stabiliser interface?"

Cora is quiet for a moment. "No. The risk of a chronometric containment breach−"

"Can be mitigated by using the chameleon circuit buffers as extra shielding." He is grinning broadly, high on his own cleverness.

"You'll never get the circuit to work again, doing that…"

"Probably not, no. But ask yourself if you really _need_ it."

Clara almost laughs at the familiar look of scepticism Cora shoots the old Time Lord. The engineer shakes her head. "Fine." Tapping at the keyboard she makes the necessary alternations. "It's done."

"Good. You need to set the chronometric altimeters to match the local signature… Clara?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

"You need to handle the harmonic generator. Remember what I said-?"

"About keeping the revolutions between thirty two and thirty three hundred?"

"Excellent."

"Actually," cuts in Cora, "You can take this model up to thirty five." She shrugs at the Doctor's look askance. "This is a Type Forty Three, Doctor. They tuned up the engine."


	4. About Six Months

"So, um, do you… want a tour?" Cora asks.

The Doctor is a pair of boots, deeply buried in the ruined console. He ignores the question.

"I think he's probably busy," Clara says apologetically, "But I'd love one."

"I imagine your TARDIS is a bit bigger than this one," says Cora, as they slip back into the corridor, "We had to jettison a lot of rooms after the crash to prioritise resources. Hygiene and sanitation are just down there; you've already seen the infirmary. _This_ is the kitchen," she continues, pushing open a reluctant sliding door.

"Hey," says a woman sat at the long table, absorbed in her data-pad as they enter, "How are the repairs coming?" She glances up, eyes widening in surprise to see the twin copies. "You're awake!" She stands, knocking her stool over with a crash, and enthusiastically pumps Clara's hand. "I'm Gryf. Or maybe you already know that? Sorry-"

"No, it's ok. I'm Clara. It's nice to meet you."

"I should wake the others; do introductions properly."

"Oh, no, you don't have to wake anyone-" But Gryf is already gone.

"Don't feel bad," says Cora, smiling for the first time, "It's time they were up for patrol anyway. Tea?"

"I would _love_ a cup." She takes a place at the table as Cora finds the kettle. "What's all the patrolling for?"

"No long range sensors," explains Cora, pouring water, "So anything we can find. Other people. Resources to help repair the TARDIS." She pauses. "Food."

The return of Gryf precludes further questioning on this worrying topic. "Clara?" she says, smiling, "This is Evin, my co-pilot."

The two are chalk and cheese; Evin is gangling tall and rather horse-faced. "Charmed," he says drily, immediately filing himself under 'A for arsehole' in Clara's internalised system.

"This is Horas, our temporal physics specialist," Gryf continues, reaching up to clap the shoulder of another young Lord.

"And I'm Miri," says the final member of the quartet; her kind eyes creased in a welcoming smile as she holds out her hand. "Technically the weapons specialist, but as we haven't _got_ any weapons it seems a bit pretentious to introduce myself by that title."

"Clara," she repeats, shaking the proffered hand, "I travel with the Doctor." She is not used to this statement being followed by the kind of reverent hush it receives from the young Gallifreyans. "Er, he's in the console room at the moment but I'm sure he'll come and say hello." Miri and Horas exchange an excited glance at the prospect.

"Tea," says Cora, passing Clara her mug and breaking the awkward silence. "Gryf, you're off this swing. The rest of you should get suited up."

"Actually, I'm going to head out again," says Gryf, "I have a good feeling about the ridgeline just past where we found Clara and the Doctor. Want to check it out."

"Okay," accedes Cora. "But stay in pairs, please." The group nods solemnly; a curiously sober reaction to a simple instruction that prickles Clara's interest. She takes a sip of her tea as they troop out to prepare themselves for more time in the desert.

"I guess I should show you the sleeping quarters," says Cora. "Assuming you're both going to stay here with us?"

"We'd be very grateful-"

"No, I didn't mean for that to sound so… Look, the desert out there is death. You're very welcome to stay. Especially if you can help with repairs. It's been… hard. Only me having any real idea of what needs doing."

Clara gives her duplicate a sympathetic look. "Did your TARDIS drag you here too?"

Cora laughs hollowly. " _My_ TARDIS? She's a repair shop rusted hulk that I was working on after hours. The six of them came looking for a joy ride, and the next thing I know we're crashing into the side of a mountain."

"Six?" Clara prompts.

Cora looks away, shamefaced. "Kinil died in the crash. And Faris… never came back from patrol. We searched, but there's no sign of him."

Clara nods gravely, her suspicions confirmed. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Cora shakes her head. "TARDISes aren't toys. We try to teach the Academy intake that when they're young and impressionable, but once they've got themselves a regeneration cycle you might as well−" She stops, colour suddenly flooding her cheeks. "I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"I'm not a Time Lord," Clara reassures, "I'm human. Didn't the Doctor say?" Cora's expression of shock indicates otherwise. "Yep, that sounds like him. And assuming he's in _any_ way representative, I'd say your assessment of Time Lords is spot on."

* * *

There is an eeriness to the dark console room; a place that should tick and whirr with light and life made still and silent. She shivers. "Doctor?" No answer is forthcoming. "Doctor, we need to have a serious talk about sleeping arrangements. I'm revoking the top bunk agreement."

Reopening hostilities on _that_ old chestnut should be enough to draw him from whatever mechanical challenge he is working through. Instead there is only silence.

She takes a tentative step forward. "Doctor?" His boots have disappeared. She sighs, hoping he hasn't fallen victim to some sort of trans-dimensional malfunction. "Are you even in here?" She crosses to the front door of the capsule, hoping to let some light into the dark space to aid her search.

Outside the sun is setting; a huge orange disc sinking towards the horizon. The blowtorch heat is waning with the light. Curiosity has the better of her and she takes a few more steps, out onto fine white sand that stretches away to a hazy horizon. Cora's TARDIS has landed at the foot of an enormous mountain, one that finds no parallel on Earth. It reminds her instead of the dead ranges of Mars; no green, no snow caps, just sloping sands giving way to walls of reddish rock.

He is sitting upslope of the TARDIS, an incongruous black stick figure against the white and red. The sand makes walking uphill an effort, her head a little woozy by the time she reaches him. His expression of misery makes her heart plummet; he looks as if he may even have been crying.

She sits next to him on the warm powder. There has been a fire here recently, a few pieces of scorched wood marking the edges of a patch of vitrified sand. She traces patterns in the glassy remains, waiting for him to speak.

"I grew up near here," he says, when the sun touches the edge of the dune sea before them. "I used to play on the slopes of this mountain. The barn I bought the Moment to should be somewhere in that direction." He waves a hand vaguely eastwards.

"What happened?"

He shrugs. "The War. Gallifrey's climate has been maintained by artificial stabilisers for centuries."

"I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as I am." He sighs. "Clara; their TARDIS is dying and I can't save her. The damage is too much. There's no power to use the architectural reconfiguration system, and no mechanical parts to use as a temporary work-around."

"Okay, that sounds bad."

"It gets worse. She reduced herself to core architecture when they crashed, and used the energy from the collapsed rooms to produce emergency rations."

"But she can't make anymore?"

"No."

"Or collect them from elsewhere?"

"Not with a broken rotor."

"Okay, that sounds _very_ bad."

"We've got about six months," he says quietly, turning to look at her at last.

"What do you mean, six months?" She scowls at him; things are bad enough already without resorting to histrionics.

"Before we die. I mean, assuming before then no one resorts to _cannibalism_ -"

"Doctor, no. Don't. Don't say things like that. I'm tired and cross and still a bit concussed. I can't imagine how terrible this is for you, to find your home like this, but stop being so morbid."

"I'm not being morbid," he argues, "I'm being realistic. I can't fix their TARDIS. I can't find our TARDIS. We're trapped."

"The whole of Gallifrey can't be a desert, Doctor. I've seen your cities, inside that painting. We just need to find other people."

"Clara, a downed TARDIS is not something my people would just ignore."

"Okay! So something terrible has happened. I get it. But we're not the only living things left on this planet. We can't be."

He gives her a shrewd look. "What makes you say that?"

"Faris. The missing Time Lord. Cora said he disappeared on patrol and they couldn't find him."

"So? He could have fallen down a crevasse, wandered off and dehydrated somewhere. It's hardly _proof_."

"I've seen the maps they've made, Doctor. There's no crevasse near here to fall down. And they searched a _long_ way from his last known position. Something happened to him. Other people, or maybe some sort of predator. In either case that means there's some way to survive here. And that we need to be careful."

His mouth twitches. "Clara, Clara, Clara. What would I do without you?"

"I'm insulted that you even ask." She leans her throbbing head against his shoulder.

After a while he relaxes enough to rest his own against hers. Together they watch the moonrise.

* * *

Cora sighs, wiping the worst of the ever-present engine lubricant from her hands. She cannot concentrate. There are too many questions that need answers. Talking to Clara is uncanny, but the itch to learn more about her parallel life is unbearable.

The TARDIS doors are open. She suspects they have gone outside, probably to make the most of the pleasant cool at twilight; before night falls proper and the desert becomes bitingly cold. She follows them out, pausing for a moment under the majesty of the night-time sky. Perhaps she should ask them how many of the star systems twinkling overhead they have visited−

Her questions are forgotten in a sick swoop of her stomach when she turns. They are sitting on the hill, close to where they cremated poor Kinil, resting easily against one another. She spins, face burning with embarrassment at having interrupted their moment of casual intimacy. _Stupid_ , _stupid!_ she chides; although _why_ she is so angry with herself she cannot explain. She should head back inside, for some more tea perhaps, before curling up to sleep. A good plan; and yet her feet seem stuck, planted here outside the front door.

"Hey," says Clara, greeting her warmly as they return to the ship. "We were going to come and find you. We think we have an idea that might help with the patrols."

"Excellent," she replies. She forces a wide smile, trying to drown with enthusiasm the tiny part of herself that sneers _of course you do_ at her human counterpart. "I'm all ears."


	5. A Hundred Years

Sen opens her eyes, blinks, touches hand to face to check they are indeed open and intact. They are. It remains stubbornly dark, nonetheless.

"Kas?" she rasps. Her mouth is dry as dust.

"I'm here." Her brother, sounding scared, somewhere to her left.

"Are you hurt?" She realises she has yet to ask that question of herself.

"I don't this so," he says, as she conducts a quick inventory. Arms, two; legs, two; torso, seemingly all in one piece, although her ribs are aching like she's taken a punch badly. "What happened?"

"I think it was an earthquake," she replies. "We need light."

She can hear him, crawling towards the sound of her voice across the floor. Something brushes her foot. Clumsily they reach for one another, finding hands, faces; reassuring themselves that yes, they are still here, still whole. One hand remains in her brother's as the other gropes hopefully for a torch. Her fingers close instead on a thin wire, a spongy ear piece.

"I think I've found your headset." Something slithers along the floor as she pulls gently on the cable; the radio is still attached. She finds buttons in the dark; questing, pressing. A click. The sound of static. And miraculously, the tiniest amount of light, cast from the power indicator on the unit. Enough to find a torch proper and illuminate the shelter.

"What now?" asks Kastral, blinking owlishly in the yellowish light.

She shrugs. "Nothing on the radio?"

He shakes his head. "Static."

They've been here before, when the Daleks broke through the lines at the Canonflood. It might take a while for the authorities to get communications working again. And then she remembers: lifeboat protocols. All citizens to evacuate to the shielded cities and their miles of sky trenches; an impossible journey with Dalek bombs raining down outside.

They are alone.

Fear and frustration take hold of her hearts, turning her stomach, taking her breath. She concentrates on the sound of her pulse; the fluttering patter. Wills herself to be calm. It is quiet, she realises after a moment of meditation. The explosions have stopped.

"I'm going to open the capsule," she says.

"But what if there are Daleks outside?"

"Then their sensors will show we're hiding here anyway," she admits. "If we're going to get shot, I'd rather die with the sun on my face, not hiding in the dirt."

"Okay," he agrees after a moment. "You take the bolt guns then. You're the better shot. If we're going to get shot, I'd rather we die taking one of them out with us." He gives her a shaky smile.

"You're the boss." She picks up the guns, checking their ammunition stocks. There a four bolts loaded in each. Enough to take out a single Dalek perhaps, if she is steady-handed enough to land all eight shots directly on the eye stalk. Unlikely, but stranger things have happened.

He unscrews the capsule lid carefully, wincing at the squeaking grind of metal on metal, loud as thunder in the quiet. She lifts it less than an inch, trying to see if there are Daleks moving across the fields. There is only blowing dust.

She stands, throwing open the lid, inviting them to attack. Nothing happens. Scrubby stands of saw grass, only survivors of the new and brutal climate, wave in the breeze.

"I think we're alone," she says, reaching down to help Kastral into the daylight. "But they took the farm."

The farmhouse, their childhood home, should stand a few hundred metres south of the shelter. In its place is a shell; only two walls remain standing framing a tumbledown pile of stone. Instinctively they edge towards the ruin. There may be salvageable supplies remaining, after all.

"Sen, this isn't right," says Kastral as they come close. She nods agreement, reaching out with a shaking hand to touch the warm stones. The house is half-buried in blown dust on the south side; the rocks of its former walls scored and etched by harsh sands. It looks as if it has lain broken for a hundred years, not a few hours.

"Let's make for the Avalons' farm. See if things are a bit better there."

The road is gone. She doesn't need it to find her way to the next farm, the shape of the low hills is enough, so familiar is the route. _But how can the road be gone_ , she doesn't say. What Dalek weapon can possibly cause _this_ kind of destruction?

Half a mile from the farm there used to be a grove of woodland. The trunks of the trees are still standing, bleached fingers that admonish the sky. Out of the corner of her eyes she thinks she sees something flit between them. She spins, training her bolt guns on the tree she thinks the shadow has slipped behind. It can't be a Dalek: they'd already be exterminated. But right now she isn't prepared to take any chances.

"Who's there?" she shouts. "Come out. Show yourself!"

"Put the guns down first!" the stranger yells back.

She lowers her weapons slowly. A man emerges from the dead wood, hands held high. He is dressed in rags and tatters, a makeshift pack on his back. A beggar, she would have thought in the days before the war. Now perhaps a refugee.

He limps closer and she can make out more detail on his weather beaten face. He must be a relative of the Avalon family; fled here from somewhere else the Daleks have ruined. She recognises those flinty blue eyes and aquiline nose…

"Sen?" gasps the man. He looks as if he has seen a ghost.

"I'm sorry," she says automatically. "Do I know you?"

He falls to his knees in the sand, quaking with shock. "You-you're dead. Both of you. Long dead."

She drops to his side, compassion battling dread fear. "What are you talking about? Who are you?"

"I'm Roben," he says, "Don't you remember me?"

"No," breathes Kastral behind her. "No, that's not possible. Roben's not even twenty. You're not-you can't be-"

Something in her brother has snapped. He cries out; an incoherent noise of pain and confusion, and bolts. He is running full pelt before she can react, before she can stop him. She does not hesitate to follow, leaving the terrible stranger in the dust. He _can't_ be Roben, handsome son of the Avalon family. It's a trick; a lie.

She rounds the hill at full speed. The Valley of Plenitude, breadbasket of Gallifrey, should stretch out before her. The crops were dead before they went into the earth but she isn't prepared for the dune sea that has taken its place. Here and there she can see the half-buried farmhouses in the sand; roofless and ruinous as their own home. Kastral has collapsed now, sobbing on the ground, hysterical.

"No," she says quietly, falling to her knees at his side. Something buried in the sand makes a hollow noise as her right shin strikes it painfully. Yelping, she turns to see what has hurt her, brushing away sand.

She recoils. The empty skull of a Dalek carapace. Eye stalk bent, metal rusted. Long, long dead.

Roben has caught up with them, gasping for breath. "You see?" he says, taking in her horrified study of the rotten Dalek. "It's been decades. You've been dead for decades. Since Lifeboat Day."

"It _is_ Lifeboat Day!"

"No," he shakes his head. "No, it's not. Not here." His own eyes are watering now, though he's smiling through the tears. "Rasslion's mercy, Sen. You've been dead for a hundred years. I can't tell you how good it is to see you again."


	6. Paths Merge

"And this bit," says Gryf, "Is the short-range communicator. Terribly primitive. Works using _radio_ waves, of all things. All you have to do is-"

"Press this button here, yeah?"

"You've used one before?"

"Occasionally." Clara smiles. "And that's it? I'm ready to go?" Her desert suit is lighter than she expected, with a balaclava like hood. It _would_ be relatively form-fitting, if she was about a foot taller. As it is, she has rolled up the sleeves and hems of the borrowed garment and kept her own shoes.

"Ready to go patrolling," confirms the young Time Lord. "I thought we could start near the ridge where we found you and the Doctor."

"The one you had a good feeling about?"

"Yes." Gryf makes a face. "I know Evin thinks I'm an idiot, but I can't shake that there's something near there. Something important. Last time I went east. This time I want to try west."

"Then let's do it."

They troop out past Cora and the Doctor, sifting through piles of twisted metal and unspooled cables. "Be careful," he cautions, glancing up from the wires he is stripping as she leaves.

"Always am."

She pulls down her sun-goggles as they step out of the TARDIS, falling into step with Gryf.

"How long have you been travelling with the Doctor?" asks Gryf after a while; a question that has clearly been bubbling under the surface for some time.

"Oh, now there's a question. In terms of time that's passed back on Earth or time as I've perceived it?"

"Hah, I hadn't thought of it like that. Time as you've perceived it, I suppose."

Clara shrugs. "No idea. Easy to lose track in the TARDIS. Sometimes he forgets to break time down into days, and you just end up running until you drop."

"Can humans not… I mean, you don't just _know_?"

"Nope," she replies cheerily; Gryf's tone is curious rather than appalled. "'Fraid not. We're not as advanced as you."

"I wouldn't say that."

"Really?"

"You cooling suit is expending about twenty-seven percent less energy than mine to maintain your core body temperature, for example."

"It is? How can you tell?"

"Remaining battery life." Gryf taps the indicator lights on the power cell at Clara's hip. "I guess you've evolved a more efficient homeostatic system for regulating body temperature than we Gallifreyans."

"Huh." She makes a mental note to tell the Doctor about this in the near future; always quick to bemoan her human frailty.

* * *

They walk on.

If Clara were here she would probably hiss at him to _be more sensitive!_ Of course, he can only tell that Cora is upset because her face is a copy of Clara's; the person he has worked so hard to be able to read.

"Look," he says, trying his best to keep his frustration under control, "We know she's never going to fly again, yes?"

Cora sighs. "Yes. I know it's foolish. I just… I always imagine it's rather sad for them to be grounded. She's a living ship, after all."

"Yes," he agrees, "It is." He runs his hand along the shattered console panel, letting the edge of his consciousness brush against the broken TARDIS's. "She knows that she is dying, though."

"Does it hurt?" She is all eyes in her face; an expression of compassion lifted straight from Clara's copybook.

He shakes his head. "Not in any conventional sense."

"Okay then," she says, squaring her shoulders. "Let's do this."

He tosses her his sonic screwdriver. "Here. It'll go quicker if you take this."

"You want me to-?"

"Your ship."

"That's not really−I mean…"

"You've been keeping her running all this time. She's as much yours as anyone's."

She runs her thumb over the power button, examining the device minutely. "Thank you."

It is surreal to see several other Clara expressions in a wholly new context over the course of their re-building. The bitten lip as Cora wrestles loose recalcitrant thermocouplings; the frown of frustration when the screwdriver struggles to free the wiring of the helmic regulator; both indicators of irritation he recognises. He is more used to encountering them in response to his own actions rather than engineering challenges.

He passes her the tools she needs when her brow creases into a familiar frown, even going so far as to fetch a cup of tea for them both when she disappears under the rotor for an extended period. He makes a mental note to raise this with Clara, who can be prickly about being asked to boil the kettle when _he_ is engaged in lengthy repairs.

They work on.

* * *

"Can you feel it?"

Clara shakes her head. She is hot, a little dizzy with dehydration, dry-mouthed. But the dune sea here seems no different to the miles they have already crossed. "No."

"It's like… a frayed edge. Pattern in a carpet that doesn't quite match."

"This is where you found us?"

"Yes, half buried in the sand here."

Any marks of their arrival have long since gone, the sand nibbled away by the breeze. Clara takes a sip of water and appraises the dunes to the west. "Is that the direction you wanted to try next?"

Gryf nods again. "Uh-huh, I was thinking that-what?" For her companion's hand has closed urgently on her sleeve.

"Over there," Clara hisses. "Something glinting. Get down!"

Gryf drops to the burning sand, obedient but confused. "Why down? Why are you whispering?"

"You never found out what happened to Faris, did you?"

"No…"

"I don't fancy going the same way. Come on. We'll have a better vantage point from the top of that dune."

They crawl forward, Gryf still clearly perturbed by this turn of events. Her confusion turns to wide-eyed astonishment as they reach the top of the dune.

"People!"

The two figures are blurred by the heat haze, but clearly humanoid. They are dressed in ragged burnouse, faces covered by scarves. Rather more bizarrely, they appear to be tied together by a long line, anchored around their waists.

"It's ok," says Gryf, "I know who they are." She stands and waves her arms. "Hey! Over here!"

The figures stop, raising hands to shield their faces, and see better the woman waving at them like a maniac. The front walker waves back after a moment and they set off at a renewed pace to join Clara and Gryf.

The taller of the two embraces Gryf like an old friend when they finally meet, pulling down her scarf. "It's been too long," she says.

"I didn't think we'd ever see you again."

The stranger makes a face. "I'd call it good luck, our plates aligning like this, but you've been bought into orientation with _him_ , so…."

They break apart before she elaborates further. "This is Clara," says Gryf, waving a hand, "Clara, this is Sen."

"And I'm Kastral," says the other walker, pulling off his own mask. There is similarity in their thin, weather beaten faces; a matching pair of slightly beaky noses, the same dark eyes.

"Nice to meet you," says Clara, politely pushing up her googles so they can see her face. Their reaction is not what she expects: Kastral gaps in horror, while Sen pulls Gryf roughly into cover behind her, drawing a rather antiquated looking bolt-gun. "Woah! Okay, so, maybe not so nice?" she babbles, her hands already in the air.

"Sen, put the gun down," says Gryf, annoyed. She reaches up to push the muzzle in a less threatening direction. "She's not Meanwhile. Look, you should come with us. Dinner and an explanation; least we owe you. And then you can tell us more about _him_."

"An explanation sounds good." Sen is still stony faced; suspicious all the way back to the TARDIS. Thankfully Gryf and Kastral make more than enough conversation for four.


	7. Outriders

"How many?"

She passes the telescope back to Roben. "I count at least fifty."

He swears. "We'll have to move on."

They are hiding in the tower of the corn exchange building; one of few standing structures that remain. The Neverwere mill below; ephemeral and colourless, like glass blown crudely into the shape of men.

"Are they really so dangerous?" With the sun streaming through them, they look almost beautiful.

Roben shudders. "They're harmless enough, but when you get a big group of them like this it creates an instability. A time slip is inevitable. I don't want to lose the others."

His words bring her to her senses: Kastral is waiting back at camp. They hurry down the broken staircase; the rope that ties them together is pulled tight.

"It's a shame," Roben breathes. "It was useful having the well water."

"We'll manage," she says shortly, never one for crying over what could have been. She is about to open the broken door at the base of the tower when the howl goes up. All the hairs on the back of her neck rise in time with the ululation. The colour has drained from Roben's face, the whites of his eyes showing. He puts a finger to his lips, not daring to speak. His terror is clue enough as to the source of the sound.

A Meanwhile.

She gestures with two fingers. _Stay here?_

He shakes his head. _Run_ , he signs; two fingers as feet. He crosses his hands twice: _T. T._

The tunnel. It's almost three kilometres away. She wonders how fast Meanwhile can run.

Roben holds up three fingers, draws a breath and counts down the digits. _Two. One._

He opens the door soundlessly and they run. They are evenly matched, the line between them loose as they race down what used to be the main street of town. Around the first corner a group of Neverwere twinkle in the midday sun. She falls in behind Roben, before the rope snares the unsuspecting dead.

Perhaps that's not the right way to think of them; as dead. Can something without a beginning be truly said to have an end? But the fact of their existence here makes her wary of considering them lightly. If they truly never were, why do their glassy echoes cast shadows in her world? Why do they mass on the edges and fault lines of the temporal plates, drawn to the chronodyne energy like plants leaning towards the sun?

They turn another corner and Roben skids to a halt; she almost clatters into the back of him. The Meanwhile is standing at the end of the former street, facing away from them. Roben jinks sideways, down an old alleyway, but it is too late. The Meanwhile turns. It looks Gallifreyan; normal enough, although there is something unsettling about the eyes.

 _I know you_ , she thinks, as the rope bites into her hips. She is almost pulled off her feet; Roben has not stopped, she must run or be dragged. Remembering herself, she sprints after him once again.

"Did it see you?" he gasps, as they dodge and weave through the ruined town.

"I don't know, I think so," she manages. She glances back over her shoulder, and almost screams. "Yes!"

He risks a look back too, something in her yelp compelling him. The Meanwhile is running after them, footfalls silent on the sand, unbelievably fast. There is blood around its mouth, she realises. She finds another gear somewhere; rockets after Roben.

The gap between them is closing as they race out of town. _Ten feet, eight, seven_. Her lungs are burning and sweat is running into her eyes, but she keeps up the blistering pace. Head down, arms pumping. Trying and failing not to lose valuable seconds by glancing behind. _Five feet. Four_. It can almost _touch_ …

The buzz of an engine sounds; mosquito whine over the ragged gasp of her breathing. She runs on, not daring to hope for rescue, even as the sound drones closer.

Over the crest of the sandy hill they appear, swift dark shapes on anti-grav speeders. The sort they used to laugh about the teenagers driving, before the war. Now they can mean survival; a precious resource those in the wasteland will kill and die for. Their appearance does not spell salvation.

The lead rider whistles, an ear-splitting sound, and the three riders move out of formation. The first is headed straight for them, curving down the mound of the hill. There is a razored lance lashed to the front of the AG, red with rust, aiming to strike. Sen has nothing left to give. She closes her eyes as she sprints on, awaiting the inevitable crunch of collision.

She hears the sickening wet noise of metal tearing into flesh; the animal howl, but it is not given from her throat. They have speared the Meanwhile. She staggers, running into the returning Roben. He clutches her instinctively as the second rider swings his scythe with murderous efficiency, brutally decapitating their pursuer.

The riders kill their engines and dismount. Roben is shaking under her hands, neither of them quite able to speak yet. The lead killer removes her helmet, shaking loose shoulder length red hair. "Do not fear, travellers!" she calls commandingly. "We mean you no harm."

She is well armoured as well as armed; black bodysuit crackling with occasional sparks of blue static. A personal shield. The breastplate has been hand-painted with a symbol of some kind; a red fist on a white shield.

Instinctively Roben and Sen place their hands behind their heads; the universal signal of submission. "We aren't armed," Roben manages, still winded. "You can take our canteens but water is all we have-"

"I said do not fear," repeats the woman, a touch softer as she swaggers close. "I meant it. We're not here to rob you."

"Who are you?" Perhaps the question is rude, but Sen has no patience for niceties these days. The world is ended; manners can go to hell with the rest of it.

"My name is Kamel," says the rider. "We are Outriders of the King. You are welcome to return with us to the citadel. There is plenty of water there; food and shelter too."

"That you would share?" Sen scoffs.

Kamel grins, teeth white against the grime of her face. "Believe it or not, sister, we have surplus."

"Thank you, Outrider," says Roben quietly, ever the peacemaker. "We are grateful for your rescue. But we do not desire to serve under the King."

Kamel looks genuinely taken aback by this, but bows her head. "Your choice, travellers. I wish you luck on your journey. Though I pray your end is close at hand; this is not the first Meanwhile we have seen on the hunt today."

"We are not far from home," Roben replies evenly.

"Good. Fare well." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two red discs; coins that also bear the mark of the clenched hand on her chest. "If you should change your mind and find yourself near the Citadel in future, these tokens should grant you safe passage. My offer of sanctuary still stands."

It is Roben's turn to bow deeply. Sen follows suit, although her neck itches as she bares it to the silent scythe-wielder. She stands again, miraculously whole, and they watch the Outriders re-saddle. They zip away in cloud of dust and growling engine. Roben pockets the red coins.

"What in the name of Rassilon's tits was _that_ about?" Sen spits, when they are mere specks on the horizon.

Roben snorts. "They sound pretentious but the citadel is pretty impressive."

"So what's the catch?" She falls in to step alongside him as they make their back home, to the tunnel.

"What do you mean?"

"If it's so great, why did you say no?"

He shrugs. "I don't think things work out well. I found the citadel, a few months after lifeboat day, from my perspective. Didn't get very far inside but it was clear their plate had travelled a lot further than mine. They'd been surviving there for years. Had hydroponics working, even. I was going to sign up as an Outrider… and then I found this when I went back to my tent to pack."

He reaches into his ragged pack and pulls out a folded strip of cloth. There are words on it, gobbledygook as far as she is concerned.

"What is it?"

"It's a code. One I made up, a long time ago, with my sister."

"What does it say?"

"Under no circumstances should you pledge fealty to the King. Your life depends on it. Trust me on this."

"… _She_ wrote this?"

He shakes his head. "Unlikely. I buried her three weeks after Lifeboat Day."

"Damn it, Roben, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he lies. "Anyway, I assume at some point I'm going to teach that code to someone else; they'll end up in my past and pass the message on." He cannot quite conceal the naked hope he feels at this imagined scenario. She bites her lip, considering her words. Roben has gambled his life on this garbled nonsense; if the timeline deviates even a little events will unfold differently and he might become Neverwere. All the scruffy survivors of the tunnel he has helped to keep alive undone in an instant, turned to colourless glass.

Or worse.

"I have a feeling that it might be someday soon," she says carefully.

"Oh?"

"Yes," she continues, banging on the tunnel hatch to signal their return. "Because that note is written in my hand-writing."


	8. The Vault

"Are you okay?"

She is sitting in the dark console room, looking at the fruits of his labour.

"Are they… anti-grav speeders?" she asks, ignoring the question.

"Yeah," he grins. "Should help with the patrolling a bit, eh?"

"I'm not quite sure I understand."

"Understand what?"

"Where we are? What's gone wrong? All of it, really. I'm not a Time Lord, not a Gallifreyan. They say things like 'the planet is cracked' and 'lifeboat protocols', and you all nod like you know what it means, but _I_ don't."

He leans against the console next to her and appears to consider his words carefully. "Do you want me to explain?"

More silence, filled with muffled laughter from the kitchen. She wonders when he learned to be this considerate.

"Can you? _Will_ I understand?"

He shrugs. "I can't answer that part."

"Go on then. How is the world cracked?"

"You know the Earth is made of tectonic plates, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Imagine it like that. Except on all those different plates time is in a different place. Like… Medieval Europe is floating past prehistoric America. And they don't just move past one another slowly. They slip and phase in and out of synchronicity with one another."

"How did it happen?"

"I don't think anyone really knows."

She gives him a shrewd look. "You do."

He is very still. "What makes you say that?"

"I know you. I can tell when you're lying."

He scuffs his feet on the floor, not able to meet her gaze. It is his turn to sigh. "I have a-a surmise. A theory, yes. Call it a working hypothesis."

"Which is?"

"Lifeboat protocols. The cities were temporally locked to prevent chronology bombing by the Daleks," he catches her frustrated look, "which is just a fancy way of saying they attack from multiple points in time and try to stop the defences being built in the first place."

"Okay…"

"It means they would be impenetrable to people left outside unless they had a TARDIS. The rest of Gallifrey would have to fend for itself once the lifeboats were loaded, see?"

"I thought _all_ of Gallifrey was frozen in time, though."

"I think the lifeboat protocols may have, uh, interacted with the temporal lock I created. That's why the TARDIS was able to come here. The places _outside_ the lifeboats are bleeding through. But I can't make contact with the Citadel or the War Council or any other Time Lords. They're still locked out."

"So, how do we fix it?"

"We can't. The lifeboats are locked from the _inside_. That was the point."

"Even if we find the TARDIS?"

He tries not to wince. "Maybe. Have to find her first, though."

In her mind's ear she hears the voice of the War Council: _No sir, all_ thirteen. She drums her fingers on the broken console. "Is that why you built the speeders?"

"Clara," he say, and he folds his fingers around hers, stilling the restless movement. "I don't know where she is. If I did, if I so much as _suspected_ … I'd tell you."

She glances down at his hand on hers, back to his earnest gaze. "I know," she says, "Sorry… I just−"

But she can't quite put it into words; the horrible twist in her gut she suspects is kin to _jealousy_ when she sees Cora and the Doctor tinker together. A version of herself with two hearts, not one; a longer lifespan, an intimate understanding of TARDIS engineering…

"You made two," she says, "two speeders."

"Yes?"

"Well, which one of me are you going to take with you?" she teases, trying to make the obvious choice a joke; something funny. As so often happens in her moments of crystal clarity, he merely looks confused.

"They're built to carry two each, Clara."

"Oh." Now she merely feels stupid. "I see."

"Were you−?"

"No. Shut up," she replies quickly. A flush has risen in her cheeks. "Tell me where we're going to take them."

"There's a… a secret vault. A day's journey from here using the speeders, maybe two."

"A secret vault?"

"It holds supplies. Weapons. Things that I can use to repair this TARDIS."

"Really?"

"Probably." He sighs at her sceptical expression. "Okay, possibly."

"How do you know about it?"

He shrugs. "I built it."

* * *

The setting sun paints pink across the endless white sand. She is half dozing against his back, lulled by the deep thrum of the speeder and the heat.

Sen pulls alongside. "We need to stop soon."

"Just a little further," she hears him say, the rumble of his voice in her chest.

"The desert isn't safe at night, Doctor," Sen persists. "We need to establish−"

"Look."

Clara lifts her muzzy head, following the line of his outstretched finger. Amongst the shimmering heat haze, folded between two dunes, there _is_ something. The suggestion of right angles and straight lines.

"Looks like a mirage," mutters Sen, but obediently turns her speeder to follow.

It isn't a trick of the heat. As they move closer Clara can see old stone walls casting long shadows in the sunset. The shell of an enormous house; a grand manor. In the dying light she can see sockets for long rotten beams, and several floors' worth of empty fireplaces. Sand has blown across the tumbledown stones, scouring soft the gothic arches, rounding the sharp angles of huge empty window frames. Even a ruin, the scale and grandeur of the place is breath taking.

The Doctor brings their speeder to a halt in the dappled shade of one cathedrallike window. They dismount clumsily, her legs as sleepy as the rest of her. Lashed together by five feet or so of rope, it is difficult to dispel the tingling in her toes. She hops from foot to foot, awkward, as Cora and Sen take in their surroundings.

"What was this place?" asks Sen.

"The House of Lungbarrow," replies Cora, sounding slightly awed. "A ruin before the war, of course… I recognise the windows. Still beautiful."

"What?" Sen shoots her a sharp look. "No... Lungbarrow is an ancient seat, there's no way−"

"Ahem," the Doctor coughs, "I believe you were interested in establishing a bridgehead?"

Sen nods. "Before it gets dark."

"There's a vault we should be able to make relatively secure. This way."

"What about the speeders?" Clara points. "Bit of a giveaway that we're here. And worth stealing."

Cora grins in response to this, reaching over her handlebars to flick a switch. The speeder seems to move out of focus for a moment, edges blurring, and suddenly a piece of broken stone is standing in place of their craft. "Chameleon circuit," the engineer explains, her smile a mirror to Clara's own. "There was enough of it left for me to add camouflage."

"Okay, now _that_ is pretty useful. Doctor, why-?" The look on his face kills her gentle teasing. "Doctor?"

"This way," he repeats, terse.

They edge through the ruins of the manor house. "Doctor?" Clara whispers, following through the maze of tumbled architecture. "Where are we?"

"She told you. House of Lungbarrow."

"And what's that to you?" she continues sharply. "Are we−?"

"We're here." He cuts across the question roughly, jabbing a finger at a pile of tumbledown stones no different to the hundreds of others around the place. He fumbles in the pocket of his borrowed desert suit, comically short in arm and leg, and extracts the sonic screwdriver. A quick pulse and the stones disappear, replaced by a rusted trapdoor.

"Is this it?" Sen sounds sceptical.

"This is it. You want to go first?" he fires back. Instinctively Clara finds her hand has strayed to his ill-fitting sleeve. A warning, a comfort; she isn't sure which. Only knows that the Doctor on edge like this, spoiling for a fight, is as dangerous to himself as those around him.

"No, thank you. After you."

He holds Sen's scowl with one of his own for a long moment, before turning to open the rusty door. The stairs revealed, descending into darkness, are no more appealing. The Doctor clicks on a torch, part of the desert gear, and leads the way down. Tethered to him, Clara follows suit.

At the bottom of the stairs is a light switch. The Doctor gives it an experimental flick and to their surprise the lights buzz and click for a moment, and illuminate. Vault was a good description, Clara realises; two bench-lined walls form a corridor to a complicated looking door.

"What's wrong?" she asks, catching the Doctor's expression.

"Not sure," he lies. "Stand back."

She takes up all the slack their rope will allow as he walks towards the door, gently placing his hand on the locking wheel.

"Doctor…?" Cora this time, although she's not sure if the Doctor realises, so similar are their voices; his attention is focussed on the vault.

"Just needs a little… push!" he manages, grimacing with effort as the wheel begins to turn under his hands. A creak, a clunk, and the vault is opened.

There is a long silence. "Well?" asks Sen, but Clara already knows the terrible answer; can read it in the slump of the Doctor's shoulder, his stillness.

"It's empty," he manages.

"What?" Sen pushes past, to see for herself. "No it isn't!" She pulls a dusty box off one of the shelves. "Rations, ammunition. It's all still here!"

He looks distracted for a moment. "Well, yes, I suppose… but, but the Arch Recon Regen." He points to a suspicious gap in the piles of grimy boxes. "Someone's taken it."

Cora looks at her feet. "It's a blow Doctor, but at least the rations−"

"Do none of you understand?" he snaps. "Empty headed idiots! No one should have been able to _find_ this vault, let alone rob it."

A ringing silence follows this outburst, Clara and Cora avoiding one another's gaze. Sen, ever the pragmatist, merely shrugs. "Someone else must have known about it, Doctor," she says, "Unless you built this place yourself."

He spins on his heel, ready to storm out, remembering Clara is attached to him only at the last second. "We'll fetch the sleeping mats," he says thickly.

Once again, it is walk or be dragged. Outside night has fallen, more stars filling the dark sky than Clara has ever seen. "Doctor," she tries again, "what is going on?"

He ignores her, and at last she digs in her heels, pulling him to a halt. "What are you doing?" he demands.

"Stop," she commands. "Just, stop. Talk to me. Something isn't right here. This isn't you. Why are you so… unsettled?"

He sighs, tugging at his too-short sleeves awkwardly. "It's this place," he manages. "Never liked it."

"Where are we? And no lying. Not this time."

He looks mutinous for a moment, but his lordly anger has long ceased to work on her. "Home," he eventually says. "For a time."

A sick swoop in her stomach at those words; a tiny piece of the endless puzzle he will always remain slotting into place. "Who else knew about the vault?"

He shakes his head. "All dead."

" _Someone_ must have known."

"No."

She shakes her head at this flat denial in the face of the evidence. "Okay. A different approach then. Who would walk into a vault like that and ignore all those other supplies to take… what did you call it? Arch Recon? That's TARDIS stuff, isn't it?"

He nods. "It's worse than that," he says, "They reset the chameleon circuit when they left."

"So?"

"So, it means they're either a Time Lord or someone like Cora, who works very closely with them."

"And that's bad?"

"It's not good. Cora's TARDIS distress call would have been…" He trails off. "Well, it's very odd that they didn't respond."

Overhead a shooting star flares, a flash of hard light throwing the broken stones into sharp relief for a brief second. For a second his shadowed face seems every one of his two thousand years; ancient and worn. She shivers in spite of herself. "What next then Doctor?" she says, hoping to bring him back to something more like himself.

He sighs. "I think… I think it's about time that we went and met the King."


	9. Gotcha

"You're mad," says Kastral flatly. "Bloody mad."

Sen nods her agreement. "You've got all these extra rations now, why would you risk this?"

He shrugs. "Someone got into that vault. The only person on Gallifrey who seems to have their head above water is the King, so, I want to know. Was it him?"

"He'll kill you. Or worse, slave you to his Citadel."

"I wasn't going to just walk in there and _ask_ -"

"Mmm, that does _sound_ like exactly the sort of thing you'd do though, Doctor." Clara, rehydrating her breakfast mush ration, mocks him from across the kitchen table. He fixes her with a fierce scowl, earning rolled eyes in response.

"Are you seriously telling me," he continues, "that there's nothing at all you want from that Citadel?"

Sen puts down her spoon very deliberately. "He has plenty that I _want_ , Doctor. I just don't believe _you_ can get it for me."

With that she takes her leave, stiff and angry, leaving behind an awkward silence broken only by the chink of cutlery. He cannot help but meet Clara's eyes across the table again, to find his conclusion reflected. Her mouth is a thin line of disapproval rather than a celebratory smirk but he knows she thinks the same.

 _Gotcha_.

* * *

"I don't want to hear it."

Sen is stacking boxes, rather more forcefully than is strictly necessary. Rations from the vault, the other half of which the young Time Lords have been sent to retrieve. Cora picks up her own box, saying nothing. They work in silence for a while, until Sen sighs.

"I can hear you bloody _thinking_ it."

"He's the Doctor," she replies with a shrug. "If you tell him what needs to be done, he'll do it."

"He's a _Time Lord_. How can you say that? You know what they're like. He'll have his own agenda. They always do. And it's _us_ that'll pay for it."

"You don't know him-"

"Neither do you! You met him for all of two minutes, half a century ago!"

"No, it's more than that," Cora returns, flushing pink, "It's not just me, I mean…" She tries again. "Clara trusts him."

Sen throws another box to the ground. "Yes, exactly! Clara. Another reason I _don't_ trust him; walking round with some poor copy of _you_ −"

"It's not like that!" The strength of her own voice shocks her. "It's not."

Sen's presses her lips together, tact never her strongest suit. "Cora, I'm not trying to make this worse for you than it already is. But you must see the similarities. She might not be Meanwhile but he's still making clones…"

She cannot stop the bitter laugh escaping her throat. "That's the point, Sen. He didn't make Clara. She made me."

"You really believe that story about the tracks in time of a dead Time Lord?"

"Yes. Yes I do. Clara can't lie. Not to me. I'd know."

"I'll have to take your word for that," Sen replies ruefully. "It just… it doesn't feel right to me. And I don't want to lose Kastral. Not after Rob- I mean, not after everything."

Silence, but for the scrape of boxes.

"If you want to see him again," Cora says eventually, "you need to tell the Doctor. He'll find him. I know he will."

"No one's finding Roben." Sen shakes her head. "He's long gone. I just… know it."

Cora can find no reply to this, other than to reach for the hand of her friend and squeeze her callused fingers in sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"It's… It is what it is." Sen sighs again. "He's going to go anyway, isn't he?"

"I think so."

"Then I guess I'd better help him. Before he brings the whole King's Court down on us," she concludes with a shudder.

* * *

From their vantage point on top of the dune Clara can see clearly the coloured wisps, coalesced into vaguely humanoid form. "What _are_ they?" she whispers, putting field-glasses to her eyes once again.

"Neverwere," answers the Doctor. "When the time plates shift, people are crossing back and forth across their timelines, creating paradoxes. Go too far and you might never have been."

Clara frowns. "Then how can we still see them?"

He shrugs. "Who knows? This isn't a branch of temporal physics that's ever been tested before."

"Are they… still alive? Are they conscious?"

"I don't think so."

She puts down the glasses. "Are they dangerous?"

"Not directly," replies Sen, "But when you see a lot of them together like this? It's bad news."

"Why?"

"It means the plates are about to shift. We shouldn't be doing this. Not now."

"Seren," cuts in Evin. "Your concern is noted. But there are five Time Lords here. I think we'd be able to sense a major shift about to occur."

For a moment Clara thinks Sen might just punch the supercilious smirk off the young man's face. Instead, their guide draws in a shaky breath and produces a horribly false smile. "Of course, sir." Clara's mouth drops open.

"Doctor?" she breathes.

He at least has the decency to look shamefaced. "If we wait the plates might move before we have the chance to reconnoitre."

" _Fine_ , but that's still no excuse for his tone," she hisses.

"I know, I know." He clears his throat. "Evin, no one asked for your contribution. As you're clearly so keen to participate, you can go and be the distraction."

"What? No, I-"

"Yes, yes, yes – off you pop. Try and look interesting enough for them to follow."

"But what if there's a time slip?" The young Lord cannot quite keep the wail from his voice.

"Well, you just told us all, didn't you? We Time Lords would be able to sense it. So go on." There is no jocularity in the Doctor's voice now, his eyes flinty. "Unless you don't trust your ability to feel the moving edge quite so well after all?"

Evin swallows hard. "I… I…"

"Oh for Rassilon's sake," growls Miri, "I'll go with you." She hastily ties her length of rope around Evin's middle, half dragging him towards one of the AGs.

"Good luck," calls Gryf.

"Same to you."

With that Evin fires up the machine and they streak away down the side of the dune, kicking up a cloud of white dust. The remaining crew wait, as the sand settles. After a few seconds the whine of another engine can be heard; a second dark shape moving across the sands after Evin and Miri's speeder.

"There goes the sentry," breathes Sen. "There'll be at least one other left behind at the post."

"Our turn, I think." Gryf, unusually sombre, draws her newly claimed weapon.

"Stun settings," the Doctor reminds them sharply. "We're not looking to make enemies here."

"Hmph," Sen sniffs.

Gryf and Horas slip down the other side of their dune, creeping towards the point of origin of the second AG. Clara watches them through her field glasses, as they try to move inconspicuously towards the stubby pillar box, outer watchtower of the King.

"They're in," she says, as they barrel through the bottom door. The remaining four wait in tensioned silence, until there is a flash from the top window of the box. A mirror reflecting the burning sun.

"One, two, three, four," counts the Doctor. "They've taken control. Time for us to move!"

They do not creep. They run down the steep slope of the mound, fast as they can, past the glittering ghosts of the Neverwere. There is a haze in the air; a force field according to the Doctor. It may as well be a mirage to Clara's eyes. They drop into a ditch dug against the base of it, gasping.

"Are we good?" manages Cora.

"They haven't shot us yet," Sen shrugs.

The Doctor is scanning with the sonic, scowling. Instinctively, they turn to him. "Just a minute."

Clara counts a hundred heartbeats pounding past. "Doctor?"

"A moment, I said." The sonic whirs at a higher pitch. "Got it!"

The shimmering haze of the shield seems to smooth out in front of them; a rectangular outline reflecting the dunes behind more clearly. The Doctor presses his palm to it, pushes, and it slides back like a door.

"Oh my God." Behind the door the desert landscape is disappeared, replaced by acres of green fields. Crops; stubby, cabbage-looking things, growing in neat rows. "How?" Clara manages.

"He controls the water," Sen explains. "What's left of the Canonflood river runs through the heart of the Citadel."

"Come on, quickly," commands the Doctor. "We won't have much time."

They step through, the door closing silently behind them. Clara offers up a silent prayer that they are able to find it again so easily.

"We need to split up," Sen whispers as they move into the vast field, keeping low. "Cover more ground."

The Doctor nods his assent, although he doesn't look happy at the prospect. "Okay. Clara, with me. Cora, you're looking for an irrigation control point-"

"No," says Sen.

"No?"

"I'm going with you. Clara can go with Cora."

The Doctor scoffs. "Why would I do that?"

The barrel of Sen's newly acquired pistol swings up to point at the Time Lord. Along the muzzle, lights glow red. Lethal mode. "Because I don't trust you," she hisses, "not one little bit."

"Sen," he growls, "You're on dangerous ground here-"

"Yes," she returns, "We are! The most dangerous ground there is on all of Gallifrey. Now, are you going to stand there arguing with me until we get caught, or do as I say?"

He opens his mouth, apparently ready to continue arguing. "Doctor," Clara finds herself saying, "Let's just go."

"Fine," he snarls, "Half an hour. Then we meet back at the door. No more than that."

"Yes, Doctor," agrees Cora, placatory hand outstretched. With reluctance he unties the length of rope that attaches Clara to his waist, and hands it over to her copy.

" _Don't_ get caught," he commands.

"I won't," Clara replies. "We'll see you in half an hour." With that, she turns away from him, heading west across the field.


	10. Meanwhile

"You don't need to do this, you know."

Sen ignores him. He can hear her breathing, fast and shallow. Her aim, however, is steady. He tries another tack.

"Who's so important to you that you would kill for them? A friend? A lover?" He considers the options. "…A child?"

"It's none of your business," she replies flatly.

"No, but you see, you've _made_ it my business," he snaps, stopping and turning to face her. "When you sent Clara away from me-"

"And what's Clara to you, Doctor? What's so important that _you_ would do this? Risk all our lives?"

Words seem to congregate in his throat. He swallows the first of them. "She's my best friend," he says, "and Gallifrey is my home. Isn't that reason enough?"

Her lip curls. How ridiculous a tableau they make, snarling at one another in amongst the cabbages. "Time Lords don't have friends. And they call the Citadel home. They don't care about the rest of the planet."

For a moment his teeth grind so tightly together his jaw aches. "Not all of them," he growls. "Not this one."

"Well, we'll see, won't we?" She gestures with the pistol towards a scruffy looking hut a few hundred metres away. "Irrigation control point."

An awkward cabbage rolls his ankle as they reach the perimeter; he stumbles slightly. Sen catches him, preventing his tumble headlong into the defensive force-field.

"Idiot," she hisses, fingers digging painfully into his bicep. "Have you ever done anything like this before?"

"I'm highly experienced in idiocy," he snaps back, brushing away her hands. Catching her look he rolls his eyes. "I can take down the shield with my screwdriver."

"Hmph."

Crawling static dissipates as the energy shell falls. "Should show on their sensors as an energy blip. Can't stay too long. Raid the data-core and go."

"What are you looking for?"

"What are you?" His patience has worn thin. "The time for this game is _over_."

"I told you, it's none of your business."

"Fine. Good with computers, are you? Because until you tell me why you're here, I'm not taking another step."

She raises her gun once more, finger closing around the trigger. "I _will_ shoot you."

"How will that help you get what you want? _Think_ about it-"

"I want my friends safe!" she hisses. "My _brother_. I don't want anyone else to die at the hands of a Time Lord! Don't try me Doctor; shooting you is a good option as far as I can see."

He shrugs. "Go on then. If you're so sure. Do it."

She makes a noise of frustration, face a mask of rage as she focuses. Aiming straight for his head. "I _will_. You think I won't… but I've had to before. I will do again." The tip of her tongue flicks over suddenly dry lips. "I will," she says; to herself or to him he's not sure.

He remains impassive, waiting. Her eyes flicker, escaping his gimlet gaze, drawn to the barrel of her gun. Realisation dawns, sad and hopeless on her face.

"Omega damn you," she breathes. "You drained it. When you stumbled…"

"I'm not your enemy, Sen. I'm here to help." A long sigh. "Always… here to help."

She lowers the gun. "His name is… _was_ Roben. He saved me. And Kas. More than once. And not just us." Her eyes are screwed shut now; he recognises her pained expression. Has worn it on his own face, many times before. "There was a… a fight and he tried to give us enough time to escape. Wasn't quick enough to save himself." Her eyes open, and he finds _he_ is the one squirming uncomfortably for a change. "He's gone Doctor. I know that much. It's just a question of whether they killed him or… did something far worse."

"Meanwhile," he says. There were rumours, of course, that reached the cities in those final hours. All of time and space on fire around them, not much time to establish their credence. After facing the ruin of the Nightmare Child he's prepared to believe them.

She nods. "Gallifrey is Hell, Doctor. But Meanwhile are what make it so. All the rest of it… all the rest of it we could live with. But Meanwhile…"

"What are they?"

"The reason we're tied together. To never have been is one thing. To fall through time and space and lose sight of yourself like they have is quite another. All they want to do is _take_."

"Take _what_?"

"Your life," she says simply. "Your blood for their hands, for their mouth. Your suffering for themselves." She shudders.

 _No_ , he wants to say, because that isn't how it works. The Neverwere are a miserable by-product of temporal physics as he understands it, but Meanwhile don't make _sense_. A rare few might be made a monster by crossing their own timelines, but not the majority. Sen, however, has been pushed far enough.

"Okay," he says. "I'll do what I can to find out what happened to him. Give me your gun."

"What for?" she asks, but offers him the handle anyway, defeated.

He presses a few buttons, rearming the device. "Reloading," he says, returning it. "I need someone to watch my back while I work."

She weighs the weapon in her hand for a moment, considering what this means.

"Okay," she says. Together, they step inside the control point.

* * *

"Shouldn't we have seen something by now?"

Cora shrugs. "No idea."

Cabbages, as far as the eyes can see. It lends a faint ridiculousness to proceedings; so mundane; so far removed from their precarious existence in the desert.

"Over there." She points. "Can you see?"

Cora squints. "Might be a control point." She checks her watch. "We've not got much time left. Worth a shot!" They turn south, picking their way through the neat rows of brassicas.

"He must have a hell of a workforce," Clara observes.

"What makes you say that?"

"This," she says, indicating the vast field with her arm. "How long would it take to plant, to weed, to harvest? And this is just cabbages. I'm guessing-"

Her guess is cut short by the sudden blare of an alarm. Trumpet-shaped speakers rise up out of the earth at intervals like deranged flowers. "Citizens!" they announce, over a howling siren. "Civil disobedience in progress. Return to your counting house immediately. Citizens!"

"Did we do this?" Clara shouts over the din.

"I don't think so!"

Which presumably means the Doctor and Sen have somehow tripped the alarm. "We should head back. In case we need…" Doesn't finish the sentence; doesn't need to in the face of her clone copy. Not to run (never to run). _To save him._

They throw caution to the wind in their return flight, pounding across the fields as fast as they can. Cora is quicker (a binary circulatory system has its advantages) and spots the other runners first. Stops, throws out an arm to catch her human counterpart. Clara, head down and sprinting hard, would have run on.

"It's not them."

"Then who?" Clara gasps.

"I'm not sure."

"They're coming… this way." She grabs hold of Cora's hand. "Come on." It feels dangerous to turn their back on the doorway home; more dangerous still to simply stand and wait for the runners to reach them.

They are very quick. The first of them, a rangy older man dressed in rags, draws level after a few minutes. Not even a sideways glance at the twin women as he outpaces them. His eyes are fixed on the mountains massed on the distant horizon; his expression one of crazed determination.

Cora's hand tugs insistently in hers, dragging her onward, though her lungs are burning now. Another runner draws level; a woman this time carrying a bundle. A baby, Clara realises, as she sprints past. The thin wailing of the infant cuts through the bang of blood in her ears.

They have reached the structure; more like a greenhouse now they come to see it properly. Clara tugs on Cora's hand, indicating they should stop.

"You want… to hide?" the engineer manages.

Clara nods. "I'm too… too slow. Compared…"

"Save your breath, it's ok. Let get inside."

The airlock doors admit them without question. Inside is tropical hot and humid, the glass walls running with condensation. There are rows of tables, covered in pots full of young plants.

"Propagation," Cora explains, as Clara wipes sweat from her brow.

"Uh-huh." She points further down the glass house. "Better cover over there." Older plants, growing in neat rows. They crouch amongst the stalks, waiting.

The door opens again. A child this time, sobbing. They exchange a glance; but no version of Clara Oswald exists in the multiverse that would deny comfort to a distressed child.

"Over here," hisses Cora, standing to reveal their hiding place.

"Come on, we're not going to hurt you," adds Clara, smiling at her side.

The child, mud splattered and pale, stares in horror for a moment. The hiss of the airlock behind makes a decision for them; with a wail they start forward, stumbling into the crops.

"Not like that," whispers Clara, kind and gentle despite her fear. "They'll see the path. Step carefully look, like me."

They are hidden by the time the airlock opens fully. What steps inside looks almost Gallifreyan. For a brief moment Clara wonders if it is the child's father. Something about the eyes, however, gives pause. The man turns his head and she can see blood, crusted on one side of his face; on his hands that reach forward, grasping reflexively. At her feet the child has collapsed, wheezing, only the whites of their eyes showing.

"Meanwhile," breathes Cora.

She's still not sure what that really means; other than bad, bad news. Does not relish the prospect of finding out.

The creature steps forward, keening horribly. It sniffs the air, turning its head to look directly at where they are hiding. Clara dares not even breathe, still as a stone. It takes a step, another. Sniffs again.

There is only one course of action. Cora is faster. Cora might be able to out run it, even carrying the child, given enough of a head start.

Clara's lips brush her counterpart's ear. "I'll distract it," she whispers. "When I go, run like hell."

Cora shakes her head vigorously. "Dead!" she mouths.

"Better option?"

Another shake, slower and sadder this time.

"Thought so. Good luck!"

With that she is moving; more time, more thought and she might lose the courage to play decoy. She crawls away, on hands and knees, fast as she dares through the rows of crop.

The Meanwhile has stopped, clearly sensing there are now two targets rather than one. He turns his head, this way and that, from Cora to Clara; back again.

Clara stands up. "Hey," she says, "hey you! I'm right here. Come and get me!"

The creature bolts forward; she jinks sideways, sprinting as fast as she can, her life surely dependent on how fast she can move. She vaults a table; sees, out of the corner of her eye, Cora and the child dash for the airlock.

The Meanwhile has clattered into the pots and plants, ripping its way through the tables rather than jump. She picks up a pot and throws it hard. The smashing of ceramic over the creature's head masks the noise of the airlock as the others escape. Clara picks up another, lobbing it into the face of the Meanwhile. Blood spurts from a broken nose. It howls like a demon, but continues inexorably towards her.

She throws a third pot and runs, diving into the taller crops again. Tries to drown out the mounting realisation that she cannot outrun this creature, cannot bring it down with the weapons around her. _Why, oh why did I not take a pistol?_ But she knows the answer; because _he_ didn't, and there were few enough to go around.

 _Don't think, don't think._ If she accepts she is beaten this is all over. She crawls, keeping low, through soft mud. Blood has run into the creature's eyes, temporarily blinding. It yowls, rubbing away at this last defence.

The airlock is ten feet away, directly in front of her. At a sprint, can she make it before the creature? How many seconds does it take to open?

Her question is answered by the hiss of hydraulics. The doors peel back to reveal another three Meanwhile, standing between her and freedom.

 _Oh, fuck_ , she thinks. _Time's up._

She won't die in the mud. Finds her feet; shoulders straight; jaw proud. _If Danny Pink can do it, so can I._

"Come on then," she says, and as one the creatures leap.


	11. The Understudy

Stars wheel overhead, ever his comfort. These skies are familiar; constellations old friends smiling down.

There is a terrible pain in his right arm and a hole in his memories where the last eight hours should be. The distant stars hold no answer to the immediate questions: how, why, and most importantly _where is Clara Oswald?_

He sits up, wincing, taking in crudely improvised manacles that bind his wrists. Gryf, grey faced, is seated across from him. She meets his eyes but does not smile, moving her pistol slightly to show she is armed.

 _What happened?_ he wants to say, but somewhere on route to his mouth it turns into her name. "Clara?"

Gryf can no longer hold his gaze. She shakes her head, the flickering campfire casting her face into shadow.

 _No. Wrong_. He cannot accept her answer. _Clearly faulty_. Transfers his attention to his bonds instead. The chain of the manacles is looped through a sturdy seeming peg, tethering him to the ground. He gives it an experimental tug. The peg remains solid, as excruciating pain knives through his arm. Broken.

"Why am I captive?" he asks.

Gryf speaks to the ground. "She says you'll run away."

"Run away where?"

"To try and find her."

"Oh." Well, whoever _she_ is, she certainly has the measure of him.

 _Resources, options_. None and none.

"What happened?" he asks.

* * *

The AG skips over the sand, overladen, a bitch to pilot. There's no fear anymore, though. Just leaden certainty. A cold dread. In her mind's eyes the scene plays, over and over.

 _"Clara?"_

 _He knew of course._

 _"Doctor, I'm sorry." The wail of the child in her arms, of that awful alarm._

 _"No," he said, "No." Face creasing in disbelief, in fear. Behind him, Sen taking aim. The crack of her rounds; a body cartwheeling across the cabbages. "No, I have to-"_

 _And Sen's fist in slow motion, unstoppable as a planet. Cold-cocking him with the handle of the gun. "I'm sorry," Sen said, swinging him up and onto her shoulders. "But I've lost too many people."_

Cora blinks.

"Where _are_ they?" asks Sen, in the here and now.

"Next ridgeline."

"Can't see their smoke."

"That's probably a good thing."

Gryf stands as they approach. The AG slews to a halt, threatening to topple the last of the supplies hastily loaded from the ruined TARDIS. "He's awake," the young Lord says.

"Great," mutters Sen.

"Did he say much?"

"Asked a few questions. I don't think he remembers."

"I'll talk to him."

"Are you sure that's -?"

"I said I'll talk to him!"

Gryf nods, defeated, and she knows another pang guilt.

He is sitting calmly on the sand by the fire, straight backed; appearing remarkably unruffled by his predicament. She folds next to him, cross legged, eyes on the flames.

"Doctor."

"Cora."

Silence. Her mouth quirks in spite of herself, in spite of everything. He's waiting for _her_ to get bored and continue the conversation. Ridiculous.

"I'm sorry about the manacles," she says eventually.

"Yes. Sorry enough to remove them?"

She shrugs. "Sure. But if you try to escape with an AG, Sen will shoot you."

"Why would I try to do that?"

"To rescue her."

"Gryf told me she was dead. Why would I rescue a corpse?"

Brown eyes find blue and she sees it; the first crack in his armour. Distaste in his mouth at those words, the feigned callousness. "You don't believe that she is dead."

He shrugs, and grimaces. "I can't."

"Doctor… the Meanwhile… There's no way that she could have escaped."

"We did."

"No! We didn't!" She finds that she is on her feet. "Doctor, they _killed_ …"

"Miri. Horas. I know. I'm _sorry_. But that doesn't mean Clara is dead too."

She balls her hands into fists, nails biting into her palms as she fights for control. "He _knows_ , Doctor."

"What do you mean he knows? Who knows?"

"The King. He sent a message through the remains of the TARDIS communication system. A warning."

 _Those bloodied faces on the monitor. Awful, hungry mouths. Speaking as one. "We are coming._ "

"So you ran."

" _Yes_ we ran." She is pacing back and forth. "Sen knows some places that we might… where they might not be able to find us. We can keep moving…"

"And then what?"

She could punch him. Right in that ridiculous nose. Square between his bristling eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"And _then what_?"

"Keep surviving! What else do you _think_?" She stops pacing. "What? Why… _why_ are you smiling?"

"Because I know you," he says, more softly now.

"No you don't, Doctor. You don't have the first idea about who I am. Just because I share her face doesn't mean-"

"Yes, it does. Because I _know_ that face. And I know when you're lying."

She sighs, anger draining, taking her energy with it. She curls up on the sand next to him again; waves her sonic screwdriver. The makeshift manacles around his wrists fall away. "About what?"

"Surviving."

Her fingers trace patterns in the sand, aimless sketches. "What else is there left to do?"

"Stop him. The King. Find him and beat him."

"Are you out of your mind?"

He chuckles. "Probably. Never let it stop me before."

Silence stretches between them for a while, the crackling of Gryf's fire filling the quiet. "I can't let you take the AG," she says eventually. "Evin's cut up pretty bad and the boy… well, we need to move quickly. There's already too many of us."

"Exactly."

"No… don't-"

"Why, because you know what I'm going to say? You're clever Cora. You know what's going to happen with the AGs."

More circles and lines in the sand as she weighs her words, stony mouthed. "They'll divide the group. Cause conflict."

"Come with me," he says, eyes shining. "Help me stop this."

Her stomach swoops sickly at those words, the naked need in his voice. "I want to," she says slowly.

"Then why not?"

"Because… I'm not _her_ Doctor. I'm not her understudy. Not her replacement, for when you find that she's really dead."

He looks genuinely wounded by her words. "That's not why I-"

"Yes, Doctor. Yes, it is." And in her mind's eye she sees his face, in that wretched cabbage field. Knowing the truth of her identity but asking anyway, daring to hope that Cora has fallen so Clara might live.

"What will you do?"

She shrugs. "Keep them safe. Or try to."

"I'll come back-"

"No. You won't. You'll die out there. Don't make promises you can't keep."

To her very great surprise he takes her hands in his larger ones, drawing her gaze back to his grave face. "I'll come back," he repeats, "for all of you. For Galllifrey."

And she believes him. Like the fool she is, she _trusts_ him. After everything.

"You'll have to make it convincing," she says.

"I know."

"Good luck." The words emerge a squeak, through her tightening throat.

"And to you," he says, embracing her awkwardly. His breath is warm again her ear as he whispers. "I promise you, this won't hurt a bit."

She feels his fingers press against her cheekbone, the fleeting sense of his presence insider her skull, before the world goes dark and quiet for a time.

* * *

Gryf has been watching. As Cora swoons, she is running. "What have you done?" she shouts, waving her gun. He does not reply, firing instead a stunning shot with Cora's stolen pistol.

Gryf topples as Sen stands. _She_ doesn't waste time shouting, but takes aim calmly and fires, no stun setting required. Only the reflexes of a Time Lord save him from disintegration. His own shot catches her full in the chest.

"No!" Evin, dragging himself to his feet as Sen thumps into the dust. Bandages form macabre streamers around his mangled leg. He limps towards the AGs. "No you can't. We need it, _I_ need it." His hands are bloodless claws, grasping tightly the handles of the fuelled machine.

"Get out of my way," the Doctor replies roughly. The young Lord has lost a lot of blood; too much, perhaps, for stunning to be safe.

"No," he wails, "No I won't! You won't kill me. You're the Doctor."

"Yes, I am the Doctor. The Butcher of Skaro. The Oncoming Storm. The Bringer of Darkness. Are you sensing any kind of _pattern_ here?"

"Please… please. Please no." Only the whites of Evin's eyes are showing.

"The Great Exterminator," he continues, hissing into Evin's face; pressing his gun hard into the young man's temple. "The Living _Death_."

It is enough. Evin goes limp. He lays him gently aside, tucking the stolen gun into the man's desert suit. "Sorry about that," he says, shamefacedly, before mounting the speeder and kicking off into the desert night.


	12. I am Clara Oswald

There is a softness, of the kind recently absent from Clara's life. Not the hard mattress of her bunk-bed on Cora's TARDIS, nor the coarseness of desert sand. _This_ feels like cotton over feather pillows, cool against her cheek.

She opens her eyes. A floor-to-ceiling window dominates the room, grey sky beyond. Three eggshell walls, broken only by a small framed picture of a bucolic landscape. She turns her head and realises the scene is three dimensional, yawning back inside the frame.

 _Time Lord art_.

Her skin is crawling now, the prickle of unease forcing her up, out of bed. Her feet are stockinged in grey wool, padding soft across dark polished floorboards. A neat nightdress replaces her desert-suit. There is a duck egg bruise on her temple, throbbing painfully. And no door. She wonders muzzily how she has been placed inside; crosses to the window.

Fingers ghost against thick glass as she takes in the world beyond. She is high in the air, hundreds of feet above a landscape ripped from the pages of a fairy tale. A flashing ribbon of river winds its way through canyon floor. There are tilled fields, stands of woodland, with white domes of rooftops dotted amongst. Away in the distance a red rock walls rise, spires and turrets hewn into stone, architecture caught between castle and anthill.

"Where the _hell_ am I?"

In answer to her question a door opens. She spins as a part of the wall simply peels away; no hinges, no crack of light to betray its presence.

"Hello," says the man revealed in the doorway. "I'm glad you're awake."

"Me too," she says, matching his friendly smile. He is small, only half a head taller than she is, and thin. Attractive in a fine-boned sort of way. "How did I get here?

"The work crews found you, unconscious. People don't normally… Uh." His mouth hangs for a second as he contemplates how to finish the sentence. "Well, anyway. They bought you to me. And here you are." He laughs. "What do you think of the place?"

 _He's insane_. She's met enough of the crazed-with-power types to spot them a mile off. "It's beautiful," she replies, careful to maintain her smile, and rolls the dice, "your Majesty."

His grin broadens. "I knew you'd be clever. Have to be quick, to keep up with him!"

"Keep up with who?" Eyes fixed on his face as she tries to work out the angles, the distances, an escape route; all from her peripheral vision.

"The Doctor, of course." The King steps inside, the walls sealing shut behind him as if no door ever existed. Her heart leaps into her throat as he crosses to her. "I know you're not Gallifreyan. One heart, not two. _Human_ , I think you say. His type."

He faces out, ostensibly looking at the spectacular view. Only the flicker of his eyes betrays his interest. Unthinking, unseeing, his trembling fingers brush the delicate lace of her collar, tracing the pattern away from her neck and down her shoulder.

"You know him?" she asks, turning to look at him, fighting down nausea at his uninvited touch. He does not meet her eyes.

" _Of_ him, certainly." He appears to realise himself, withdrawing his hand and clasping it, chastising. "Forgive me. I'm not used to... You're not one of my subjects."

"No, your majesty," she replies, "I'm not." There is a flash of something petulant and vicious across his face, triggered by her warning. His smile turns savage for a second. She pretends not to notice. "My name is Clara. Where is the Doctor?"

"Oh." He takes a step back, much to her relief. "Gone, I'm afraid." He throws open those quivering hands. "My troops have been looking, but to no avail. Probably just as well."

"Oh?"

He laughs again, a hearty chuckle. "Well, if they did find him, of course, they'd _eat_ him." With that flourish his smile is instantly gone, replaced with something cold and calculating; psychopathy unmasked. "Like they should have eaten you _._ "

"Those creatures were your troops?" she says, still light, still calm.

"Yes," he snaps, mechanically. "The Meanwhile. Did you like them?"

"No, I'm afraid not, your majesty."

"Ha! Brave too. Well, I suppose you'd have to be. Getting in that mad old box with him." He clicks his fingers and the door springs open again. She _almost_ leaps to flee, but there are two burly guards standing beyond; a fight she knows she cannot win. "Take her to the laboratories. We have work to do."

"I'll go willingly," she says, raising her hands as the two men advance. "You don't have to-"

But their syringe has already found her neck, and the world fades away for a time.

* * *

A light flicks on, circle of white, painfully bright in the black. She blinks, blinded. Manacled to the table; able to move her head but arms and legs still unresponsive.

"You didn't have to do that," she says, slurring, her mouth sluggish. Vestiges of a sedative still in her system. Hopefully when it wears off fully she'll be able to feel her limbs again. She doesn't dwell on the alternative – why else would they have bothered to bind her?

"Don't presume to tell me what I can and can't do, Clara."

His voice, over an intercom rather than in the room.

"Why are you doing this? What do you _want_?"

"Oh, many things. Answers, mostly."

A hum, electrical. Something powering up. Adrenaline in response, heart beating fast. "Talk to me then," she says, willing life back into her numb fingers. "You don't- _argh!_ " Crackling agony, a thousand white-hot needles in her flesh, transmitted through the embrace of her bonds

"I told you," his voice says, almost drowned out by the pain, " _don't_ tell me what to do."

"Okay, okay!" she cries out. "I'm sorry! I won't… I won't do that again. Please, please-!"

"Good."

As suddenly as it arrived, the agony is stopped. The hum is louder now, audible over the bang of blood in her ears. A second light source, gentle, blueish, is growing in the centre of the room. She watches it balloon, sketching the rest of the cell in silhouette as it does so. One door near her feet; another across the room. Two possible escape routes. All she needs to do now is get free of her bonds…

"What is it?" she asks, willing her frozen fingers to move.

"A fracture in time," he replies.

Her brow wrinkles at this. "It doesn't look like any I've seen."

He sighs. "A _controlled_ fracture. A nexus, if you will, of a thousand parallel realities. A touchstone."

"Why?" _Come on, feet, move!_

"There is a creature, Clara, on Gallifrey. A flutter-wing we call it. I wonder if you can imagine-"

"I know the sort of thing you're talking about, yes."

"Well, when you were a child, did you never pull the wings off such an insect to better see how they worked?"

"No, sorry. Can't say I did."

"I did. Direct observation. Dissection. There is much to be learned from it, I've found."

"Vivisection and dissection are quite distinct, however, your majesty."

"To begin with, certainly."

The door across the room opens on this chilling pronouncement, and a young woman is pushed inside.

"Please no!" she wails, stumbling. "It wasn't ME!"

"No, no, please," echoes Clara, as the woman claws at the door like a trapped animal. "Please, don't-!" But the pain is back, fire poured into her bones by the bonds of her bed. She thrashes in mute agony, as the woman screams, as the ball of blue light expands to engulf the stranger.

Her screams change pitch, becoming high and keening. Within the sphere of light, she is shaking, trembling. Perhaps it's the tears in her eyes, but from Clara's perspective it seems as if she _blurs_ -

And then it is over. The ball of blue light recedes to nothing, and the woman collapses like a marionette with all her strings cut.

"Hello?" says Clara. "Are you okay? Can you hear me?" There is no answer from the prone woman. "What did you _do_ to her?" she spits, furious, renewing her fight against the bonds of the bed.

"I showed her the truth," replies the King, after a moment of silence. "I showed her all her faces."

"What does _that_ mean?"

From the floor there is an ominous hiss in reply. The woman stands, pale face an oval in the gloom, stepping closer.

"Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

"Ssssss…" Hands grasp reflexively, dragging steps. Clara recognises the symptoms.

"You made her Meanwhile," she says.

"Yes."

"How?"

"I showed her all it was possible for her to be. All the roads not taken. All the better lives."

"And that turns people into this, does it?"

"So sceptical, Clara! I assure you, that is all I have done."

The woman looms over her, still hissing like a snake. She snaps her teeth, fingers outstretched as claws, reaching for Clara's face… but something seems to stay her at the last second. Like a whipped dog she cringes away, snarling now. Clara cannot help the gasp of relief.

"Interesting," says the King. "They don't like you."

"Is that what happened before? In the greenhouse?"

She remembers the creatures' advance, the hot iron tang of fresh blood-

"Yes. When they touched you, you were rendered unconscious. But they did not attack. They did not feed. I must know why…"

"Maybe it's because I'm human," she suggests. "That's all. Just something new—something they hadn't encountered before. You don't have to—"

She writhes in pain once again as the bed crackles back into life.

"You are remarkably slow, Clara, at learning not to tell me what to do."

Clara can taste blood in her mouth from a bitten tongue. The smell of it makes the woman keen, but she dares not draw closer. "Old habits," she offers thickly.

"Die hard," he finishes. "If that's what you will…"

There is silence for a time. She finds she can wiggle her toes at last, though her bonds are too tight to make much progress on an escape. Then the hum and the ghostly blue light return.

"What are you doing?"

No answer. The blue light grows brighter, expanding. Her bed judders and shakes, much to her consternation, rattling across the floor. She is at the centre of it now; the light warm on her skin like the sun. She blinks-

 _-she is riding her bike-_

 _-quick sharp stab of a paper cut- "Call me Clara."_

 _-grit on her skin-_

 _"I am Clara Oswald."_

 _-bone-rattle of the tube running pell-mell- "Actually, it's Mrs. Harrison,"_

 _-she clutches the yellow pole of the bus, too short to quite reach the plastic strap-_

 _-chemicals in, electro-fizz- "most people call me Winnie"_ _"Miss Oswald."_

 _-feet aching- -coffee grounds bitter-_

 _-sharp ink smell-_ _"Clara." "NOT A DALEK" -sweet taste of chocolate-_

 _There are a thousand voices in her head clamouring at once, a cacophony beyond imagination. She is everywhere and nowhere; the dizzy centre of a mad kaleidoscope of shifting times, places, faces and feelings. She is human and she is alien; she is whole and she is broken; wife, mother, child, lover._

 _"I am Clara." "Ozzie."_ _"Clara Oswald."_ _"Oswin." "Clara."_ _"Call me Clara."_

"I AM CLARA OSWALD!"

Her face is wet and her head is ringing. Bile in her mouth, stomach roiling. The light is gone; the woman is gone; she is alone.

A click. A breath. Her heart sinks. _Not alone._

"You are Clara Oswald," the King repeats. "But what does that mean? What is Clara Oswald?"

"Human," she says, hoarsely. "That's all. Just a normal human woman."

"No," he says, "You're a complicated space-time event. Your timeline is splintered into a thousand fractured pieces. You're a _wound_ , Clara Oswald. And you are unique."

The buzzing hum returns, the ghostly blue. She groans. "Please… I'm asking you, please…"

 _"I am Clara Oswald."_

 _"I am the impossible girl."_


	13. We Can Win

Clara waits, cross-legged on the concrete floor of her cell. Gone are soft furnishings and woollen stockings. Her clothes are coarse, ill-fitting; those of a prisoner now, not a guest. Gone too is her hair. She was shaved recently enough that her head still feels cold, the nicks of the blunt razor fresh scabs on her scalp.

Her eyes are closed but she does not sleep. Dreams are frightening, filled with the fragments of far too many lives, too many faces, to be a comfort. Instead she meditates, breathing as deep and even as bruised ribs can allow. Trying to recall every line of her grandmother's face, of Danny's face. Of the Doctors' – old and new. It helps more than it hurts; trying to hold on to those people that are important to her and her alone.

The door of her cell opens. The guards drag her roughly to her feet, no words exchanged. She goes limp, a dead weight to be dragged past rows of other cells into a now familiar chamber. There is a heavy wooden chair that she is shackled to; a regular routine. It seems easier for the guards to bend her limbs into place than she remembers, a bracelet of bruises marking her previous efforts at resistance against the manacles. She is thinner, weaker than when this all started.

 _But so is he._

The King enters the chamber once she is secured, looking pained. He wipes sweat from his brow, the marks of her teeth still visible on the back of his hand. Her body may be suffering but the hate in her eyes is channelled to laser intensity. He avoids her gaze.

"Clara, Clara, Clara," he says, "I have something interesting to show you today."

A new strategy, then. A flutter of fear at that she is careful to hide. He twists knobs and dials on his console, until the far wall of chamber flickers into life. A giant screen, showing several views out onto his Kingdom. The Gallifreyan equivalent of a security camera feed. It looks sunny outside; she can almost smell the cut grass of one pastoral scene, feel the warmth of the sun on her skin. Perhaps that's the point, such simple memories more torturous than she could ever have imagined before her incarceration began.

And there he is. A camera feed clearly broadcasting from some outpost of the Kingdom has picked up a distant figure on a speeder. He's impossibly small, a stick figure, but she knows it's the Doctor. There's something in the way he holds himself she recognises instantly. Her stomach lurches and she fights to keep her breathing steady. _Give him nothing_.

Click, tap, twist; the King changes her view. Several more cameras from the same outpost turn the screen from shades of green to orange; scrubby saw grass and dust replacing fertile fields. In one frame Meanwhile wait, pacing the edges of a cell. He's showing her a trap, she realises, that the Doctor is racing towards.

"He believes the outpost is unmanned," says the King, tracing a pale hand over the part of the screen where the Meanwhile pace. Almost a loving caress.

She shudders. "You really don't know anything about him, do you?" Her voice is still hoarse from their last round. "If there's one thing you never do; it's put the Doctor in a trap."

"Your faith in him is absurd."

"We're still outsmarting you. Found a way into the TARDIS yet, have you?"

He ignores her barb. Despite herself, she cannot help but watch the figure on screen resolve. _Oh, he's hurt!_ One arm is bound against his body; he pilots one handed, teeth bared against jolting pain. He turns the speeder, sliding to a halt in a cloud of dust. The external camera is blinded, but she can see the door holding back the Meanwhile has been opened. They pile out of their cell and into the corridors of the outpost.

She's forgotten how fast they are, when they're free to move unfettered. They scatter across the screen, tearing open doors, racing down staircases, moving like angry wasps. Outside, the blurred shape of the Doctor is moving towards the outpost door through the dust, screwdriver in hand—

There is a bright flash and the external feed is lost. The Meanwhile have clearly found the exit, suddenly moving with obvious purpose, streaming out of the door and out of view. The King frowns, tapping at his console. Trying to restore the feed.

The screen flickers again, but sight of the outside world is not returned. Instead two words resolve, in bright white capitals.

NICE TRY

Clara smiles as the King screams; keeps smiling even as he slams his fist down and the bonds of the chair crackle into life. She judders and shakes, teeth grinding together against the pain; still grinning. When he shuts off the power she slumps, but manages a bubbling laugh.

"Anything else you want to show me?" she manages, before pain returns, chasing her back into darkness.

* * *

It is later. How much later she's not sure. Consciousness has found her back on the floor of her cell, cheek stuck to the floor with her own bloodied dribble. She sits, rubbing away the mess, trying to take stock.

 _What do I know?_

She knows she is Clara Oswald, twenty-nine (and a bit), English teacher from Coal Hill School, London, Earth. That bit is always important to start with, as she sheds the dreams of countless other lives.

She knows where the TARDIS is, _her_ TARDIS, not Cora's broken twin. The King has it under lock and key; has done for centuries.

And she knows that the Doctor is alive, and is coming to find her.

In the dark and the cold she rubs the goose-flesh of her arms and grins. She knows that she can go on resisting.

 _I know that we can win._

* * *

Time for Clara passes linear, as it always has. She's not sure how long she's been here, prisoner of the King, but it's surely no more than weeks. Time for the Doctor appears to be passing rather differently. It's a different kind of torture; one more effective than pain and misery. To see him fail, again and again, to breach the King's defences… to come so close to her aid and fall back. That is the hardest thing to bear.

 _We can win._

The King cannot control the shifting of Gallifrey's fractured time-zones, that much is clear. But he _can_ trigger random shifts, corralling Neverwere along lines of temporal instability. Again and again the Doctor comes close to breaching the perimeters of the Kingdom, only to find himself caught in a time slippage; sent out of synch from Clara again and again and again.

 _We can win._

And yet, and yet, here is again. Roaring out of the dust on his speeder. His hair is mane of untamed curls, chin bristling with stubble she has never seen grown in before. He is thinner than ever, weather-beaten and snarling. There is a wild desperation in his eyes that she doesn't recognise, that the camera captures before he is thrown back.

 _We can win._

At night she lies on the hard floor of her cell, and wills the words across whatever distance lies between them.

 _Oh please, oh please, don't give up Doctor. I'm here; I'm here and we can win. We can win._

* * *

Out in the desert, a man who might once have answered to the name Doctor builds a fire. The light of civilisation is an orange glow on the distant horizon. The Citadel of the King lies in the crook of an immense valley, several hundred feet below.

There's a tension in his gut; a gnawing fear. He's been here before, so _certain_ that victory is within grasp, only for the capricious shift of chronology to snatch it away.

 _What do I know?_

He knows that Clara Oswald is alive. The changing of time is not random; a malicious will has set against his own. Why else, if not to keep them apart?

He knows that the time zone is right; can read it from the turning stars above, from the quality of the haze on the horizon. It's not so early she is not yet a captive, nor too late that her human life is surely spent.

He warms his hands on the fire and waits for the moon to set.

 _I know that I can win._

* * *

"Captain?"

"What is it?"

"You might want to see this, sir."

The young lieutenant flicks on the main monitor, showing the outpost camera feed. An AG speeder, heavily modified, is skipping over the sand dunes towards the security station.

"Where does he think he's going?"

"Wherever it is, he's going there at a hell of a pace."

The Captain nods. "Send a squad to intercept."

A salute from the lieutenant in response; he hurries down the stone steps of the outpost tower to the mess room. Several outriders look up expectantly from their meagre rations.

"Squad's up, riders. Hostile contact incoming."

There is no hesitation; three of the riders immediately lay down their cutlery and head for the door. Within minutes they have mounted their own speeders, and streak off to intercept the stranger.

He's quick; far quicker than his cobbled together craft has any right to be. The lieutenant adjusts his course, pulling the outriders in tightly.

"What's he _doing_?"

"Suicide run," answers the Lieutenant grimly. He's seen it once before, another wanderer from the wastelands. The scratched existence too much to bear; the desire to leave the hell that Gallifrey has become in a blaze of destruction. "Deploy lances."

The wasteland AG turns gracefully, running parallel to the armoured patrol now. He is an older man, bent low over the handlebars. He turns his head as the lieutenant brings his speeder in close; for a second their eyes meet. The lieutenant shudders. There is a cold fury burning blue; not madness but _vengeance_.

"Watch ou—!"

The _whump_ of the afterburners igniting drowns out his warning. The wastelander's speeder accelerates away, uncatchable.

"He's going to go over the edge!"

"No… no, he can't be…"

But the first rider is right. The enemy AG is driving straight for the canyon edge, moving so fast he seems to blur.

"How's he _doing_ that?" asks the third. "At those speeds the dune should be flipping him."

"I… I don't know." The lieutenant is holding his breath. Surely, _surely_ the man cannot be about to drive over the edge?

The enemy AG drops out of sight. "Rassilon's mercy," says the Captain over the comms, "he bloody did it."

"There's nothing close to the canyon wall here. There shouldn't be any other casualties," replies the lieutenant, shaken.

"Food for the rock-vultures," suggests the third.

The lieutenant nods. "Back home then, riders."

* * *

The wind, whipping cold in his face; howling around him. A curious sense of peace after the whine of the speeder's overcooked engine. The Doctor risks opening his eyes, to find the glider modification are indeed working perfectly. Rather than accelerating to his doom, he is descending lightly down onto the plain.

"Geronimo," he whispers.

He tugs the wires of the rudimentary steering system, causing the rig to wobble alarmingly, but bringing him around tight to the canyon wall. He doesn't want the King to see this coming. Stay in the cliff shadows, a speck that could be a rock-vulture or harpy-eagle. Onwards he glides, into the heart of the Kingdom.


	14. Escape

A return to the room she thinks of as the laboratory; where Frankenstein builds his monsters. She thought the King had grown bored of watching her experience a thousand lifetimes at once. Perhaps he has some new variation to try. She waits, mute, held in place by the hideous charged bonds as always. She is tired. There's almost a comfort to be had in this clinical mattress compared to her cell. She closes her eyes—

 _Bzzzt_! Electricity jolting into her very bones. She sighs, weary, and reopens her eyes. "Was that really necessary?"

He doesn't answer. He has been almost mute recently. That _should_ feel like victory, but stopping his words hasn't stopped the pain.

The hum of the machinery warming up and the return of the blue light. There's no trill of adrenaline anymore, just a curious sickened feeling that takes hold of the pit of her stomach. She knows what's to come; doesn't fear it. She will endure.

Instead of rattling her gurney into the blue light, the King projects familiar security camera footage onto the wall. She sighs again, more deeply this time. Far worse than enduring the fractured splinters of herself scattered through time is the sight of _him_ ; trying and failing once more to reach her.

He is on foot, this time. There is something more familiar about him than she has seen of late: screwdriver in hand, light on his feet. In spite of his tangle of wild hair, he is more like the Doctor she remembers.

"Where is he?" she asks.

"Outside this building," replies the King.

She doesn't permit herself a reaction. "You'd never let him get so close."

"Correct. Sadly, my outriders appear not to share my concern."

A wave of the screwdriver and a door is unlocked. Change of camera angle; the Doctor storming down a nondescript corridor now. He spots a control point and wheels about. Another flicker; cut to a close-up of his face. The tiniest tip of pink tongue protrudes as he works the station, expression hawkish. Her insides contract painfully at the sight of him, so familiar, wearing a face she's seen a thousand times. The challenge doesn't matter, be it saving a planet from a rampaging monster or dismantling a shower radio to make a clockwork squirrel. She knows that look.

And she knows the King. "So, what's the trap?"

"You, of course. You're the bait on my hook."

Across the room the blue light plays, crawling across the floor. She thinks she understands.

 _Run, Doctor._ His eyes flicker on the screen. For a moment she dares to hope he might have heard her; the strength of her words unspoken beamed directly into his brain without the need for intervening ears. She's never quite certain just how telepathic he really is. His expression changes, teeth bared in a grin, and her heart plummets. No telepathy. He thinks he's found a way in.

The cameras follow him through the maze of corridors. He clearly thinks he is carefully avoiding the scientists and guards that prowl. With the King's panoptical eyes, she sees the truth; the careful orchestration of their withdrawal to lure him deeper and deeper into the trap. Lock tumblers twist, electronics bleep their surrender. He is coming to find her.

And now the _snick_ of the lock isn't transmitted from the security feed but the sound of the door across the room permitting entry.

She opens her mouth to shout, to warn him not to open the door, but King has planned for this. Her bonds fire into life and the pain is stronger than any she has yet endured. Her jaw locks, every muscle in spasm, blinding tears of agony fill her eyes.

She expected fire and rage. She expected the Time Lord victorious to rain destruction on her captors. Instead there is flat calm, the door closed quietly behind him. "Your Majesty," he says, eyes on the ball of blue light. "You're hurting my friend."

His voice is cracked and hoarse, like he's forgotten how to use it. _Oh no, oh no,_ she thinks, still rendered mute even as the bonds of the bed power down. The Universe is flapping loose, the Doctor on the edge of a precipice he cannot even see, and she can do nothing, _nothing_ to help him—

"You come to bargain with an empty hand," says the King, mechanical. Before, she knows, he would have gloated and goaded. Their mutual torture sessions have taken the _game_ out of all of this. "You imagine that you are going to stop me? With nothing in your hand but that pathetic sonic device."

"No, not imagine," the Doctor replies. "I know it."

"Ha! You haven't changed."

"On the contrary," says the Doctor, still very level, "I've changed more times than you can imagine. But sometimes, if you change enough, you bend back around into what you started as. Release her."

"No."

"I don't like to repeat myself, your Majesty."

"Neither do I."

A frown now, creasing those magnificent eyebrows. "I don't know who you were," says the Doctor. "I don't recognise your voice anymore. But this has to stop. Maybe you started this all for the right reasons; I don't know. But what you are now, what you are doing, has to stop."

"No, Doctor. It is _you_ that has to stop. The last of a long line of Time Lords who thought they knew _best_. And look at what you did! Look at what Gallifrey has become, thanks to your _meddling_."

The background hum of energy changes pitch as the ball of blue light starts to expand slowly. The Doctor regards it curiously, head slightly to one side. "So that's how you've been making them," he says softly. Horror, for the first time, edging his words.

"It's quite effective," returns the King, "I would say goodbye to Clara Oswald, if I was you. You won't recognise her very soon."

The Doctor licks his lips, looking left and right with the kind of urgency she recognises as preceding mortal peril. "You don't have to do this."

" _Goodbye_ Doctor."

The ball of blue goes supernova, larger than she has ever seen it, almost filling the room. The light surrounds the Doctor, who spread his arms wide—

 _And suddenly she is no longer looking at the man she knows better than the back of her own hand. Something else stands in the halo of light, something caught in the shape of a man, but folded in on itself; bigger on the inside. The shadow moves, walking towards her. She can hear, on the edge of perception, the crack of the cataclysm that began the universe. Something is shifting, something her human senses can only dimly recognise; the sense of something tremendous in scale groaning and moving around them. The fabric of reality warping, colours starting the bleed—_

There is a thunderclap explosion, a shower of sparks, and the lights cut out. In the dark she strains against the bonds with all her might.

 _Bzz-bzz_. She flinches automatically, but this buzz is a friendlier pitch, the screwdriver whirring into life. The Doctor's oh-so-human face lit in ghostly green.

"Clara," he whispers, as if her name is a stranger to his mouth. The screwdriver points and the hated bonds at last release.

She reaches for him, her muscles still firing strangely, hand a claw. She expected a helping arm, pulling her to her feet. Instead he envelopes her in a crushing embrace, painfully tight. _Doctor_ , she wants to reply. But the words have died in her throat, lost in the alien sensation of beard prickling her neck; the smell of dust and sweat that surely do not belong to him.

"Clara," he says again, drawing back, his hands framing her face. Exquisitely gentle, as if she is as fragile as a soap bubble, just as easily popped. "Can you walk?"

"For you," she says, delirious in this strange new unreality, "anywhere."

* * *

The sun is warm on her face, bright even behind closed eyes. At her back is the warmth of another body, a strong arm cradling her in place.

 _A dream_ , she tells herself firmly. Perhaps it's even a memory, a page torn from the life of another Clara. She will open her eyes and find herself back in her cell, cold. Alone.

She opens her eyes to find herself curled against the Doctor, piloting what was once an anti-gravity speeder, but now resembles a rejected concept drawing from _Mad Max_.

"Hello, sleepyhead," he says.

"We escaped." _She barely remembers; limping through the dark, his arm slung under hers as she fought to keep her shaking legs from folding._

"Uh, yeah. Well, that bit's sort of still in progress."

"Are they following us?" she says. She doesn't twist to look. No sense hastening the inevitable if they are.

"Not that I'm aware of. That little stunt took out half of the Citadel's power grid. Chameleon circuit won't fool the sensors, but it works well enough on eyeballs."

"Hmm," she says after a while. She has the vague idea she has slept again; orange day suddenly painted in twilight colours. "Where are we going, Doctor?"

"The mountains. I hacked the King's security network when I was looking for you. The rumours of rebel forces hiding in the hills have some truth to them. I thought they might make good allies. If we can find them."

She digests this. "Well, let me know how that goes," she says, letting her head drop into his chest once again. "Keep me… apprised."


	15. A Promise

"Clara! Clara!"

"Which one?" she groans, before she is heartily sick. For a few minutes the world is nothing more than her roiling stomach and thumping heartbeat, echoing around her skull. Her ribs ache fiercely. She spits the last of the acid bile away and apologises.

"You were—"

"Nightmares," she cuts across him. "I know."

He nods and she loves him fiercely in that moment; for not needing to press the issue; for accepting her words just as they are and letting things she cannot face yet simply lie.

He has parked the speeder in a needle-leaved scrubland on red limestone platforms. The embers of a fire glow nearby, her feet still tangled in a bedroll of assorted rags to cushion her aching bones. She tugs them away from her puddle of sick.

"There's a stream," he says, "just over there. Drinkable. And you can wash in it too."

"Is that your subtle way of telling me I smell, Doctor?"

"Humans always smell," he frowns, waspish as ever, "but I know washing is important to you. There's some other clothes in the pack, if you want."

"Thank you," she says, surprised.

He shrugs. "I wouldn't thank me just yet. You haven't seen what they look like."

They turn out to be somewhat oversized but soft, dry, and mostly clean. After a bracing wash in the icy stream that is all she really cares about.

"Your turn," she says, returning to the little campsite to find him poking the remains of the fire. For a second he looks ready to argue, eyebrows shooting into his tangle of hair. He settles for clucking like an angry chicken at her order instead, and then does as he is told.

There is still a wildness about him when he returns, but the water has tamed his curls at least. "What?" he demands, taking in her amused smile.

"The beard."

He touches a hand to his chin, as if the news is a surprise to him. "Oh. Oh yes. I'd forgotten that tends to happen. Huh, it's good insulation though. You should grow one too."

She licks her lips, never quite sure if he's joking or not with comments like those. "I'll bear it in mind," she settles for. "Doctor, where are we?"

"Gallifrey," he says, looking concerned that she might have forgotten.

"… yes, thanks, I know that much. But there's cold water and plants here. Not endless desert."

He nods, understanding dawned. "We're in the foothills of the Cannon range. Further west than Perdition and within the territories of the King. Climate control is still established here."

"Within the territories?" She tries and fails to keep the note of fear from her voice.

"Yes," he says, more soft. Hesitantly, he extends his hand to take hers, giving her fingers a reassuring squeeze. It's still as if he's reading from an internal script rather than acting on instinct, but the gesture is a welcome comfort nonetheless.

"I'm sorry," she finds herself saying.

He frowns again, confused. "Why? He captured you. Tortured you. A bit of healthy fear never hurt anyone." She looks away at that, and he presses on. " _Clara_. I can't t that we're safe here. But I swear, I will not let him take you away again."

She swallows, eyes on the limestone until she is sure she has her voice under control. "Is that a fact?"

"It's a promise."

Now she meets his eyes, swimming with tears he does not let fall. She squeezes his fingers in return. "Me too," she returns. "I promise." She draws in another painful breath. "So, what's the plan now? You mentioned rebels in the mountains."

"Yes. The Cannons are under his jurisdiction but _not_ his control. There's too much difficult ground to cover. Escaped prisoners are living in the hills. Sometimes they target farm convoys, steal equipment."

"How do we find them?"

"I don't know. The King's sources are vague. We're in the right sort of location but if they don't want to be found…"

"Well, they must need shelter, water, some source of food," she reasons. "Find that, we find them."

He nods, considering. "Onwards and upwards then."

* * *

She watches him gather the spiny brushwood for the evening's fire, ragged blanket around her shoulders. They are higher now; the air is colder, thinner. The cool means more moisture, however, and the scrubland cover is thicker. Nestled in a valley fold between two steeper slopes, their camp feels more secure.

"How long has it been?" she finds herself asking, as he deftly weaves the sticks and spines.

"How long has what been?"

"How long have you been out here?" There is something far too practiced about his movements; old habits of laying out a bedroll, building a fire.

"Oh, I don't know," he lies.

"Yes you do. You always do."

He continues to play with the sticks, avoiding her eyes. "A while."

"I know he was manipulating the temporal plates. He made me…" she hesitates. "I mean… I could see."

"I stopped counting," he says lightly, conversation ended. "It doesn't matter."

"It does to me."

"Why?" he snaps, putting down the bundles at last and scowling at her. "It's over."

She swipes away a tear she is too angry to let fall. "Is it really? For you?"

His frown crumples. "Clara, I'm sorry—"

"Don't be. Tell me the truth. How long has it been… for you?"

"Fifty-three years," he says, continuing over the sudden roar of blood in her ears, "nine months, two weeks. Three days, nineteen hours and forty-seven minutes—"

"Stop. Please. I'm sorry."

" _Why_?" he says again, sharper still. "It wasn't your fault. It was mine. I should have—"

"Should have what?"

"Been more cautious!" he shouts, on his feet now. "I have a duty of care."

"What? No you don't. I've never asked for that."

"You shouldn't have to," he snaps back, pacing back and forth. "You shouldn't have to _ask_."

She pinches the bridge of her nose, suddenly exhausted by their exchange. "Doctor, you owe me nothing. Look at what you've given me—" He's made a gift of the Universe to her, she wants to say.

"Yes, look," he growls, missing the point entirely; waving a hand at her bruises. "Pain. Suffering."

"Meaning. Adventure," she corrects, shaking her shaven head. "Perspective. Something to _be_. Doctor, please. Sit down."

He sighs deeply, but does as she asks, hunch shouldered and cross. A little bit of humour escapes through her teeth at his expression.

"What?"

"Fifty-three years?"

"Yes. Why?"

"And how many hours did we manage before we had an argument?"

"Less than forty-eight. Counting the time you were asleep." She can see his smile underneath the scowl now.

"Well, I'm hungry. What's your excuse?"

He takes the hint; rootles about in his pack. Eventually he produces a twist of suspicious dried meat with a triumphant grin. "Rock lizard."

"Delicious," she says, doubtfully, after a bite.

* * *

She wakes screaming again; shouts translated into vapour on the cold mountainside. The afterimage of a hundred other lives drag at the periphery of her vision.

 _I am Clara Oswald, I am Clara Oswald_ , she tries to say; but she isn't sure which is which or where she is.

A hand, a hand on either shoulder. Gripping her almost too tightly. "Clara," says the owner of a ferocious scowl, " _my_ Clara."

She blinks. "Doctor."

"That's right. We're on Gallifrey together. Do you remember?"

She swallows down bile. "Yes. Yes, I remember." But there are other tendrils of herself coiled around; she remembers a child's laughter and the smell of baby powder; a night shift spent in sensible shoes, and a parent's evening that seemed to never end.

"Stop that," he says sharply. "You don't have to worry about those ones."

She nods but it's hard; memories of pain, of primal urgency particularly tug at her. The baby, the empty cot, the cold hand.

Bony fingers find her chin. "Clara," he says again. "Look at me."

She does as he asks, meeting his stare; seeing constellations wheel and change in the reflection of his eyes. "Thank you," she says, when she's sure of herself again.

"It will get better," he says.

"Really?"

"Yes. The more time you spend exclusively in your own time-stream the easier it will become to stay."

"It feels so real."

"It is real. But it isn't here, it isn't now, and it isn't happening to _you_."

"I know," she says, and then again more convincingly, "I know. It's cold. Is there anything else you have in that pack?"

His hand moves from her chin to her cheek. "You're warm. Feverish."

"Figures," she says, teeth chattering.

He pulls her ragged blanket back tight around her shoulders, fumble fingered and awkward. "I don't have any more clothes."

"It's ok," she says, trying to shiver less obviously. "I'll be ok." She closes her eyes, and for a second the sound of her footsteps on hospital linoleum bleeds through; the thin wail of a hungry baby.

"Clara," he says warningly. "Stay with me."

"I'm trying," she replies, "It's hard."

He pulls her closer, rubbing his hands on her arms to try and warm her up. "I want you to tell me," he says, "the very first thing you can remember."

"About what?"

"About _you_. The first thing, Clara. Starting school, perhaps? Day out with your Gran?" He is bundling his own blankets around them as he talks, cocooning them together.

"Um, day out at the beach," she says. "We had ice creams and I think I rode on a donkey."

"What else do you remember?"

"It was hot. Gran was with us…"


	16. Trigger Happy

Her name, whispered into her ear, wakes her. She jerks, finding his palm covering her mouth.

"Be quiet," he murmurs, releasing her now he is certain she will not cry out. "We've got company."

"Outriders?"

"No."

"Plan?" she hisses.

Silence; his breath, warm on the back of her neck. She cannot help but roll her eyes.

Other voices are audible now; low, clipped. "There's footprints in the mud down by the river, Rob. Someone's out here."

"Outriders?"

"Maybe. But it's a small group if so. If we take them by surprise…"

"Hmm. I'm sure they're saying the same about us."

Clara twists awkwardly to face the Doctor. "Rebels!"

"Yes," he whispers back, "I've got ears too!"

"Stand up."

"What? No, no, no… They've got guns. They're probably going to be trigger happy maniacs."

"Doctor, I'm not lying here waiting from them to find us like lost hitch-hikers." Especially in a shared bedroll, she doesn't add. The pooled body heat has been useful above the snowline, not to mention his grounding presence when she loses her sense of self in the waking nightmares. She's just not sure either of them is prepared to explain that to armed strangers. "If you don't stand up I will."

He almost growls in frustration, but stands nonetheless, hands up high. "Don't shoot!" he says, loud and clear. "We're not Outriders. We're hiding from Outriders. And we're unarmed."

Silence, for a moment. "We?" someone asks.

"There's two of us," Clara adds, standing at the Doctor's side now a hail of bullets seems less likely. "We escaped the King's prison."

"You're spies, then," says a man, stepping out of the shadows and into their ember-lit circle. His gun is trained on the Doctor's chest. "No one escapes the prison."

"We did," replies Clara, "during the black-out."

The man whistles and two shadows detach themselves, resolving into more scouts. "You going to let us search you?" says the shorter of the two; a woman.

"Like I said, we're unarmed," says the Doctor, wincing at the pat-down.

"He's telling the truth," says the second scout. "No weapons."

"How'd you get up here?" asks Rob.

"Stolen AG speeder," says the Doctor. "It's shielded—"

"Turn off the cloak. Slowly."

Taking care to hold the sonic screwdriver in as non-threatening a manner as possible, the Doctor drops the cloak. To Clara's surprise the three rebels gasp in response.

"That-that's the Wanderer's AG," says the man.

"Impossible," breathes the woman, "he's a myth."

"Oh no," murmurs Clara, "not this again. I hate it when this happens."

The Doctor has the decency to look somewhat chagrined. "I've no idea what they're talking about."

"You stole it from the Wanderer?" asks Rob, looking genuinely disturbed.

"What? No! I am the Wanderer!"

"You're not the Wanderer," scoffs the woman. "They say he fought his way through an entire outpost of Meanwhile to steal the afterburners for that thing."

"Yes, I did!" returns the Doctor hotly.

"No offense," says the man, "But you don't really look like much of a warrior."

"You do realise that saying 'no offense' before you say something really offensive doesn't actually make it any less offensive?" snaps the Doctor. "If anything, it merely telegraphs the incoming insult."

"And you can take his word for that," mutters Clara, "he's really conducted thorough research on that score."

"All of you, be quiet!" Rob, attempting to inject some sanity back into proceedings. "This is madness. The longer we stand out here talking, the more chance we bring a patrol down on our backs. Bring the speeder and bring our… our guests. We're heading back to the high camp."

* * *

They sit at a trestle table near the mouth of the cave. After a while someone brings them a hot drink, sweetish to taste. No one seems sure if they're prisoners or new recruits. Rob, grizzled and pale in the greenish phosphorescent lighting of the camp, is arguing in the corner with more rebels.

"There's more of them than I anticipated," says the Doctor, shifting in his chair to take in their surroundings.

"Hmm?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yes… I just. I think I've seen him before."

"Who?"

"The tall one with the big nose. Rob, I think."

"Really?"

"I'm positive I remember his face from… somewhere. Don't look like that!"

"Like what?"

"Sceptical!"

"I'm sorry," he says, raising his hands in supplication. "But you've been through a lot recently; seen a lot of faces from other people's lives. Are you sure—?"

"Yes," she scowls, "I'm bloody sure."

Some of the colour drains from the Doctor's face. "If he's a plant…if he works for the King…"

"No, it's not that. He wasn't a guard or a scientist."

"Then who?"

She bites her lip, trying to think. "He was running…"

"What?"

"When we were split up. In the cabbage field. Before the Meanwhile, there was a group of escaping workers. A man, a woman, a baby."

"He was the man?"

"No, he was the baby," she deadpans, and rolls her eyes again at his confused expression. "Of course he was the man."

"Hell of a coincidence," he says slowly.

"Now, what are you thinking?"

"Nothing."

"Not nothing," she says, flicking his arm. "Even with that beard you could hide a chicken in, I still know that face."

"Hide a chicken?"

"No, look, don't get distracted. What were you thinking about before I said chickens?"

"Oh, there's more than one in there now is there?"

"Shut up! Stop talking about poultry!"

"You're the one that bought it up!"

"A-hem." As one, they turn from their argument to the owner of the polite cough. The short scout. "My name is Hari," she says. "We were wondering… if you'd like something to eat?"

They stare at her for a moment. "Anything," says Clara, "that isn't smoked rock lizard."

* * *

There isn't a room for them as such, but convenient alcoves in the cave have been screened off by the simple expedient of hanging sheets. There's even a mattress on the floor; heaven as far as Clara was concerned.

He sits, slightly hunched, at her feet. Watching the steady rise and fall of her breathing under the blanket as she sleeps.

"You can come in," he says after a while, to the shadow behind the curtain.

Rob, slightly shame-faced, twitches the sheet aside. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You're sensible to be sceptical."

"She's safe here," Rob reassures, "If you want to join us outside." He falls into silence at the Doctor's expression.

"Rob, Rob, Rob," says the Time Lord, rolling the name around his mouth. "Short for Roben, yes?"

The rebel commander stiffens. "How could you know that?"

"We have a… a friend in common." He'd still like to think of Sen as a friend, even if their last encounter did involve her trying very hard to kill him. "Seren."

"You… you met Sen?"

"Yes. When I left her she was very much alive and well and trying to find out what had happened to you."

"Where is she?"

"Well, that's the rub. On the Perdition plate, which was at least five decades out of alignment with this one when I last travelled through."

"The Perdition plate? To cross back you'd have to get past the Citadel."

"Then neutralising the Citadel is our first priority, no?"

Rob laughs, until he realises the Doctor is serious. "Wanderer… I know you've pulled off some daring feats in your time; I've heard the stories. But taking down the Citadel is… well, it's impossible."

"No," says the Doctor. "That's what he wants you to think. It's difficult, dangerous and I don't yet have a plan. But impossible? Never."

"You've met him, haven't you? The King."

"Yes."

"Then you know how dangerous he is."

"Yes," the Doctor repeats. "He has to be stopped."

"And you're the man to do it, I suppose?"

"He tried to take something from me," says the Doctor, voice softer now as he watches the sleeping Clara.

"Your… friend?" Rob inclines his head.

"He imprisoned her, he tortured her, and he tried to change me so that I would kill her."

"He didn't succeed."

"In getting me to kill her? Of course not. In changing me? I'm not so sure."

Roben can make no sensible reply to this. "If you're comfortable here, then I will bid you goodnight."

"Actually, there is _one_ thing you can help me with."

"And what's that?"

"I don't suppose anyone would be willing to lend me a razor?"


	17. My Robbery

Something is tickling his face. He frowns and wrinkles his nose, trying to dislodge whatever irksome insect is crawling on him without opening his eyes.

He hears Clara chuckle and opens them anyway. She is close, too close, one hand outstretched towards him. Instinctively he shies away. "What's on my face?" he growls.

"Nothing," she says, withdrawing her hand.

He sits up, dimly assembles the clues. "It was you." Stroking hair away from his face. He's not at all sure what to make of this development.

"Sorry," she says, reddening. "I just woke up and there you were, all… well _you_. Not ZZ Top."

"Ah, yes," he says, "I borrowed a razor." It dawns on him that his reaction may have been hurtful, although she wears no outward sign. Before he can think better of it he takes her hand, touching the back of it to his cheek. "Better?"

It's her turn to wrinkle her nose, confused, but crucially touched by this oddly intimate gesture. "Won't you miss the insulation?" she smiles.

"Well, I can always grow it back."

"So," she says, folding her hand primly in her lap now, unwelcome distractions. "You shaved your face and went full Banksy on the bed-cave. Did you get up to anything else while I was asleep?"

"Oh," he says, waving a hand at the schematics he has scratched into the rock. "You mean this?"

She nods. "What is it?"

"A plan," he says, enjoying the mysteriousness just a little too much, "to topple a King."

* * *

 _"You see ladies and gentleman, the plan is simple," says Clara. She's in full teacher mode, holding the attention of the rebel commanders with consummate ease. "The King's security depends on the network of Outrider posts and, within the Citadel, a small personal guard. If we can trigger another power-outage, we can get inside. And once inside…"_

 _"He's a target like any other," suggests Roben._

 _"Indeed."_

 _"We've tried to cut power supplies before. There are too many back-up generators, too many fail-safes." This delivered by the hard-mouthed Captain Feros, over steepled fingers._

 _Clara remains unperturbed, inclining her head to acknowledge the Captain's words. "We know. You need to take out a minimum of eight separate sites to trigger a cascade failure_ and _introduce malicious code into the internal network. Like a… virus, if you will."_

 _"Eight sites…"_

 _"Simultaneously."_

 _"That's a big ask."_

 _"We'd also need to steal a number of parts we can't engineer from materials available here. Particularly, a dataslice driver."_

 _Feros shakes her steely head. "Impossible. Those drivers are too well guarded. You'd need an army."_

 _"No," says Clara, eyes shining, "you just need to get us inside the Razorback."_

* * *

"What's the Razorback?"

He's impressed. So far she hasn't said 'this is ridiculous' or 'how could you possibly think that would work' or any of her other usual responses to his more outlandish plans.

"A train, essentially. It links the Citadel to the farming settlements in the north, running out to the camps."

"Camps?"

"Prison camps."

"What does the King need prison camps for? Doesn't he just turn his enemies Meanwhile?" She takes in his grave expression. "Oh, I'm not going to like this am I?"

"The prisoners aren't necessarily those convicted of wrong-doing. They're leverage."

She shudders. "Can we help them?"

"I intend to. Stealing the dataslice driver is the first step."

She lies back on the mattress, taking in the crawling outlines of his idea to take down the King. "Well," she says at last, "It's ambitious."

"Ambitious? That's a positive assessment by your usual standards."

She grins. "And insane. And almost certainly doomed to failure."

"Ah."

"Count me in."

* * *

"Papers?"

The Doctor hands over their fake passports to the guard. She tries to adopt the same deferential pose as the other workers bound for the northern farms; avoiding eye contact, affecting docility. Underneath the manufactured calm her heart is racing. Their lives surely rest on the skill of the forgers, the quality of their disguise.

It felt like a game back at the campsite. Dressing up. A selection of horrible wigs, playing with wax and pigment to make scars and blemishes, giggling. Now she wishes they'd been more serious.

"Inside," says the guard after an eternity, waving them away with a languid hand. Not until they are seated within the cramped cabin does she hear the Doctor let out the breath he's been holding.

"Now for the tricky part," he murmurs. She smiles in spite of herself. It _would_ be the waiting patiently he'd find most difficult. The train needs to enter the relative cover of the dolomite hills before their theft can take place; an hour or more's journey.

"I bought some cards," she says, producing a battered deck. She's determined to teach him a game more complex than _Snap_.

The carriage is crammed well over capacity by the time the Razorback lurches out of the station. Clara casts a nervous eye over their fellow passengers.

"We'll be okay," he reassures.

She deals a hand of gin-rummy as best she can in response; the suites of Gallifreyan cards have a nasty habit of changing when she's not looking.

There are no windows in their carriage, they are reliant on precise timing. An interminable while seems to have passed. Perhaps it's a good thing she has no watch, checking the time every thirty seconds or so would surely be a dead giveaway.

"Now," he murmurs eventually, so soft she barely hears him.

She nods, and finds her feet. They make as if they are heading for the stinking bucket toilets in the vestibule. No one is keen to spend much time in the vicinity, much to their advantage. The Doctor seals them inside the horrible space as she tries not to gag, unravelling mag-clamps from their hiding place in her pack.

A wave of the sonic and the ventilation grill is loosed from its frame. The rattle of the Razorback on the tracks immediately fills the space, with a blast of hot, dusty air.

"You first," he says, helping her up out of the hole and onto the side of the train. The mag-clamps clunk against the metal of the carriage, holding her firm. She crawls up by inches, repeating the sequence over and over in her head, a strange mantra: _press-release-move-engage!_ On the roof the wind is almost too much to bear; the rattle-clack of the rails all pervading. She drags herself along, teeth grit, eyes streaming.

"This is it!" she hears him shout. She grabs hold of his farmer's rags before he slides off the roof, fumbling for his laser cutter. The sheet metal peels open like a tin can when he gets it working. She can see banks of complicated electronics inside.

He lowers her down into the carriage; a relief after the whipping wind. "What are we looking for?" she whispers, as he uncurls down from the roof after her. He slightly misjudges the drop, landing ungainly, with a grunt.

"Not sure, not sure," he says, extracting the sonic. "Give me a moment."

She nods, and moves to secure the door instead. "Doctor?"

"No, not that one… too much of the yellow…" He is muttering to himself as he flits between the banks of computers. "Ye-es?"

"How long?"

"How long's a piece of string? Could be five minutes, could be an hour-oh!"

"Oh?"

"Ooh," he repeats, waggling his eyebrows excitedly and pointing at rack of wires and blinking lights no different to any other, at least to her eyes. "That's it."

"Good. Get it out, then."

"Ah-ah-ah, can't be rushed, can't be rushed," he chunters, working with the screwdriver, enjoying himself far too much.

"Doctor, you're going to have to work faster."

"I'm going as fast as I—"

 _CRASH_. An angry guard slams against the carriage door, cracking the glass pane.

"Because we're about to have some company!"

Behind the crazed glass the guard has raised his stun-pistol, useless against door except as a hammer. He smashes the handle against the glass, which fractures further.

"Doctor!"

"Almost there, almost there!" he shouts back.

On instinct she grabs hold of one of the rattling banks of machinery. It's barely secured to the wall; a swift kick knocks out an ageing bracket. With a second almighty _smash_ she topples the lot, sending metal and plastic pin-wheeling, blocking the door.

"Felt good, did it?" remarks the Doctor dryly.

"Oh yes! You done?"

He waves the crucial component. "Got everything we need right here."

"Let's go then!"

She takes the dataslice driver from him, tucking it into her shirt before he boosts her back onto the roof. Everything now depends on Roben manoeuvring his AG alongside the train in time. She swings down onto the side of the carriage, clinging on for grim death.

 _Come on, come on._ The valley is narrowing. She doesn't fancy being scraped off the train by the side of a cutting.

"Is that them?!" she shouts.

"Where?!"

"Ten o'clock!"

There is a huge cloud of dust, apparently racing towards them.

"Too big!" he shouts.

 _Outriders?_ She doesn't ask. If it is servants of the King, they are lost.

The cloud of dust moves closer, and she can pick out something of the shape in its centre; the outline of a monstrous vehicle.

There is a screeching sound of amplified feedback. " _Ladies and gentleman,_ " announces a laconic voice, " _this is a robbery. Lay down your weapons; our quarrel is with the King, not with you._ "

"What?" snaps the Doctor. "No, no, no, this is _my_ robbery. They can't have one too!"

The machine in the dust roars closer; she can make out a turret, spikes and caterpillar tracks. It makes the Doctor's modified AG look like a toy. "What do we do?" she shouts, but he has no answer. What can they do, other than await the inevitable?

The war-machine rattles closer; the dust a storm around them now. The Doctor is cursing, fumbling for the sonic, and somewhere in the sand hydraulics grind and a door opens.

"Who are you?!" A gunner, face masked and goggled.

"Enemies of the King!" replies the Doctor, putting every ounce of authority he can into his voice.

Goggles regards them for a second and then holds out a hand. "Hurry aboard then!"


	18. No One Asks

The door slams shut behind her, as Goggles pulls the Doctor aboard. The terrible noise of the war-machine and the Razorback are muted.

"Who are you?" she finds herself saying.

The gunner pulls off her mask to reveal the infectious grin of Gryf. "Hello Clara," says the dusty Time Lord. "I didn't recognise you under that wig. Hello Doctor."

"Hello," he replies, sounding almost embarrassed.

Clara ignores his odd reaction, allowing Gryf to pull her into a hug. "I can't believe he did it!"

"Did what?"

"Got you out!"

"Ah, well," says the Doctor, positively writhing with shame, "you know…"

"I guess I can forgive you for stunning me," Gryf continues, mischievous, "knowing it was all worth it in the end."

 _Ah_. Clara raises an eyebrow. "Something you want to tell me, Doctor?"

"I don't think so—"

"Does someone want to tell me," snaps a strangely familiar voice, " _what_ in seven hells is going on?" Cora strides into the cramped little cabin, scowling, ready to square up the tall stranger at the turret door. She freezes as the Doctor gives her an uncomfortable little wave.

"Hello," he says again.

"Doctor," she replies, very faintly. "Is that really you?"

"Ah, um, yes," he blusters, pulling off his false nose. "Yes, it's me."

And suddenly he is stumbling backwards under her weight, enveloped in a fierce hug. "You bastard!" Clara hears Cora shout, muffled by the Doctor's coat. "I thought I was never going to see you again!" She draws back, sizing him up. It's strange to see from the outside.

For a second Clara feels like she is flapping loose again, adrift in her own multiverse, stomach turned to lead.

"How long has it been?" her clone demands.

"What do you mean?"

"For you, how long?"

"Fifty-three years," he says.

"Rassilon's _mercy_."

"He did it, though," says Gryf, breaking the spell between the two of them after a long, long moment of silence.

Cora snaps around, smiling, taking in the still-shocked Clara. "I'm glad," she says, reaching out for her counterpart's hands, giving them a friendly squeeze. "Truly glad. But if you're free, what were you doing clinging to the side of the Razorback?"

"Ah," the Doctor says, and coughs, melodramatic as ever. "Crime."

"You were after the dataslice too?" asks Cora shrewdly.

"What makes you say that?"

"That was part of our plan," says Gryf. "Cora's plan. To take down the King."

* * *

Clara runs a comb through her damp hair, avoiding her eyes in the sliver of mirror. Outside, revelry continues.

 _There was drinking; scout Ingrid's secret still behind the AG workshop providing enough moonshine to render the whole encampment half-blind. Too much of the potent brew is still tingling in her veins, flushing her cheeks._

 _There was dancing. Music, Clara has found in many desperate corners of the Universe, has almost magical properties. A tin drum, a whittled whistle. Such things are enough to transfer the meanest hovel into a place of joy. Evin—lugubrious and limping these days, no trace of the arrogant Lord Clara remembers—had whirled Gryf around the floor so forcefully she took flight._

 _There was a long awaited reunion. When Sen dropped down from the battle-wagon to find Rob engaged in a full-blown shouting match with Cora, Clara felt the world hold its breath. There were tears; a tight, wordless embrace. Later, several mugs of inter-engine brew later, there was possibly even some kissing. Both disappeared into the mountain night several hours ago._

 _In the midst of the celebrations she had turned to find the Doctor; out of habit, never far from each other's sight these days._

 _And he wasn't there._

She meets her own dark eyes in the slice of mirror and sighs.

 _He was standing with Cora by the rows of battered tankards, talking animatedly. Dignity had told her to look away, but instinct held her gaze instead. The little engineer was smiling indulgently, awaiting pause in the flow of his words. Her hand, gently cupped against his face, smile then quirking. A kiss when he finally stopped; fast; almost chaste._

 _His blinking surprise in the aftermath, as Cora turned away. A hand to his lips,_ wondering _._

 _And afterwards he came to the alcove, as if nothing had changed._

* * *

"What are you doing here?" she says, lightly, calmly.

"You came to sleep," he replies, that same blinking confusion in his eyes.

"So?"

Confusion turns to panic at this challenge. _He doesn't want to say it_. "So I normally… am here. Assuming that you're… that you're sleepy."

"You don't have to be," she says, practically breezy.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times. _I want to be_ , he doesn't say. "Oh."

"Good night, Doctor." He recognises the dismissal, frown tightening.

"Clara…"

"Pretty tired," she says, her airy calm beginning to fray. She lies down, turns away. "Going to sleep now." Screws her eyes tight and hopes for… what?

Possibly _not_ the swish of the curtain, judging by the sudden plummet in her chest. Probably not the sound of his retreating boots, either.

 _Oh fuck, oh fuck_ , she thinks. She really isn't very good at this.

* * *

The battle-wagon looks, if anything, even more enormous alongside the rag-tag AGs of the rebel fighters. The height of an articulated lorry; maybe half the length. Enormous caterpillar treads crawling down both sides; an angry fanged face for a bonnet.

Cora drops lightly down from the armoured turret on the right hand side. "Hard to believe she started out as an AG too."

Clara smiles, suddenly shy. "You built her."

"We all did."

"She's amazing." A marvellous machine, a home, a point of departure. All at once. _She's the TARDIS_. The thought twists in her gut but tightens her resolve.

"Were you looking for the Doctor?" Cora asks, and she recognises that oh-so-breezy tone; could laugh to hear it now from her own-other mouth.

"No," she says, truthfully, "I was hoping to find you."

"Oh." Cora considers this for a moment. "Do you want to come on up?"

Cora's room on the wagon is small, barely more than a bed and cramped desk, right in the roof of the vehicle. It should feel awkward, sitting cross-legged together on her covers. Instead, the air is confessional, almost a relief.

"I, um," Clara says, "I… oh, God. I can't believe I'm going to say this."

"What?"

"I mean, there's so much going on out there. Life and death. The decay of a whole planet. A _war_. It feels stupid to have to say anything about… something so _small_ in scale as this. In the grand scheme of things." She takes a breath. "I won't stand in the way. Of you and the Doctor. I mean, I'm not saying that we have… it's just if _you_ wanted to… I wouldn't want you to feel you couldn't because of me. I'm fine with it."

A sigh. "Clara."

"Sorry, I-I just… it'd be such a cliché, us fighting over him. I just wanted to-"

"-to take control?"

"Yes."

Cora chuckles. "I understand. I think probably more than anyone else can." She looks down at her hands for a moment. "I appreciate what you're trying to do. But you're wrong."

"Wrong?"

"It's not small. And you're not fine with it."

Clara swallows. "I would be. In time."

"I know. Oh, I _know_." Cora's fingers fold around hers. "It's been fifteen years since that greenhouse, Clara. For me, anyway. This plan to stop the King… I've been thinking on it for almost all of that time."

"The same plan as the Doctor. You think alike."

"No. He's a genius. Oh, and an idiot too, don't get me wrong. But he devised that plan in an evening – watching you sleep. He told me."

"So?"

" _So_ you think whatever... force there is between you, whatever you want to call it... You think it's small in comparison to the great big world, the great big _war_ out there. But _he_ spent more than fifty years trying to get you back. Don't you see? If Gallifrey mattered he'd have turned that big old brain to the task years ago. He'd be King of this whole planet now, if that's what he cared about. But he just wanted _you_. Safe, with him."

Clara makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sigh. "I never asked him for that," she manages, almost plaintive.

Her reflection laughs. "That's not how it works though, is it?" She lets go of her hand. "No one _asks_ to be loved. They just are."


	19. Moments

"You've trained in hand to hand combat before?"

Scout Ingrid looks, if anything, sceptical at her application to join the drill group.

"Yes. No. Well, a bit. Taekwondo with the Year Sevens. I probably need a bit more training."

"Right." Ingrid taps her fingers together, considering. "I'll put you in with the rawest recruits. If you find it a bit too easy…"

"Understood."

She can _feel_ him rather than see him; watching her as she takes her place alongside the newest faces.

* * *

He drops into the chair next to her at dinner.

"That looks sore," he observes, pointing to the bruise blooming on her cheek.

"Yes, it is. Thanks for reminding me."

"Oh." He examines his cutlery for a moment. "Are we still fighting, then?"

"I dunno," she returns, "are we?"

"It's hard to keep up sometimes."

"Right."

He coughs, apparently needing to pick at this wound. "Is there a reason you were with Ingrid's recruits today?"

"Apart from the obvious?" She takes a spoonful of soup, playing for time.

"Why?"

"We're in the middle of a war—"

"We have been before. Why _now_?"

"Because I can't see a way of winning it that doesn't involve fighting?"

"Oh." He purses his lips, apparently satisfied. "Okay."

She takes a breath –ready to continue this proto-argument – but he has picked up his bowl and his horrible hard roll of bread, and moved away. She sighs instead, putting down her spoon, appetite suddenly diminished.

* * *

"You need to put more weight behind it," advised Cora, holding the sparring pad. "Punch _through_ the target."

Clara tries again, ignoring the sting in her raw knuckles.

"Yeah, _that's_ more like it! Now imagine it's someone you really, really hate…"

 _His supercilious sneer_ , she thinks, mentally pasting the face of the Doctor at his most prickly onto the mat. _Smack_ , _smack_ , _smack;_ Cora winces slightly.

"You haven't spoken yet then?"

Clara shakes her head. "Not really."

"You'll work it out—"

"Yeah. I know."

Cora makes a face she thinks she recognises, but wisely keeps any more words of wisdom behind her teeth. "You should drill with Gryf, by the way."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, she's pretty expert at turning an opponent's strength against them. That's important when you're as short as we are. Or so she tells me."

"You don't train with her?"

Cora shrugs. "I don't think hand-to-hand is where my strength lies."

* * *

"Again," says Gryf, smiling.

Clara is sweating heavily, out of breath. "Just… a-a moment-"

" _Again_ ," repeats her friend, insistent. "If you can do it through fatigued muscles you'll embed the sequence better. Trust me."

Clara nods, still gasping, forcing aching limbs through the pattern of punches and blocks once more. "Why?" she wheezes.

"Muscle memory," Gryf explains, as she corrects Clara's form gently. "You don't want to _think_ about blocking, do you? You just want to react."

"'Spose," she manages, keeping her eyes firmly on the opposite wall as the Doctor sweeps past, a collection of tangle wires and bent metal in arm.

* * *

She finds him in the garage, eventually. "What are _you_ doing?" she says, trying to convince herself that breaking their impasse is a sure sign of moral fortitude rather than capitulation to his stubbornness.

"Trying to find a way of winning that doesn't involve fighting."

"Oh."

He meets her eyes at last, gives a grudging inch. "More specifically, working on a vector for the malicious code we need to introduce into the King's computer systems."

"How's it going?" she asks, trying to ignore the strong smell of burnt metal.

"Badly."

"Ah. I guess I… smelled that."

"Huh. And your efforts?"

"What do you mean?"

"The training."

"Oh. _Oh_. Um, better. I think."

"I could show you a few moves if you like."

She swallows a laugh. "Oh?"

"Venusian aikido. Very effective. Although, generally better if you have _five_ limbs."

"Right… I might stick with what I'm doing at the moment, if it's all the same to you. Not sure I can really spend the energy on acquiring that extra limb at the moment."

He shrugs. "Your loss."

"Entirely. Look, do you want a hand? Assuming that, you know, you're not growing a spare yourself?"

"Haha." His eyes flicker to meet hers for another brief moment, recognising her offer for the apology it is, she thinks. "Pass me that synestic," he says.

She does so, _almost_ sure the brush of his fingers against hers is deliberate – an _I'm sorry too_.

For them, it will have to do.

* * *

"You know, there _is_ an easier way," remarks Sen drily, as Clara picks herself up from the floor.

"What?" she asks, wincing.

Sen sends her sprawling again, with consummate ease, before replying. "Learn to shoot."

"Ah. Ah, no. Thanks, but no."

"Why not? Because _he_ doesn't? He's got lives to burn that you haven't."

Sen's words sting more than any slap. "It's not that."

"What is it then?"

At last, Clara manages to block effectively an incoming blow. "I'm not sure," she manages, momentarily jubilant, before Sen takes her legs from underneath her again.

* * *

"Energy pistol," says Cora, pointing to the sleek little weapon. "Two settings. Green lights; you're on stun. Red lights you're lethal. Simple enough."

"And to aim?"

"You just point and shoot. It's not TARDIS science."

"Right."

"No recoil like the physical weapons. No drag on the projectile. You don't have to compensate for wind or anything like that. Pistol's effective to about thirty feet. After that the energy dissipates. You need a rifle for longer distances, but there's precious few of those about."

"Right."

"Well, go on then," Cora smiles, nodding to the targets on the range. "Give it a shot."

Clara's fingers close around the cold casing, gunmetal alien in her hand. _It_ is _alien_ , she tells herself. Everything here, alien. There's no similarity here between her and Danny Pink, picking up a gun as a way to make the world a better place, none at all—

The thing _fizzes_ rather than bangs, a surge of power she can only just feel. Three smoking holes are now burned into the centre of her target.

"Like I said," continues Cora, "it's not TARDIS science."

Clara puts the pistol down. "Thanks."

"No problem. Do you want to take it? On the mission, I mean?"

Clara bites her lip, weighing up the options.

"Yes," she says.

* * *

She dreams, unpleasantly, of Daleks and Cybermen. Of Danny's ruined face, and his final words. _The promise of a soldier_ , hisses a Cassandraic chorus of Claras.

 _You will sleep safe tonight_. _Hahaha_. They laugh, hollow. _Sleep no more, Clara Oswald_

 _Oswin_

 _Winnie_

 _Clara_

 _Who am I?_

Their faces blur, and for a second she is trapped inside a carnival house of mirrors; a thousand fractured reflections stretching away in different directions and—

 _I don't know where I am, I don't know where I am. I don't know_ who _I am and I don't knowdon'tknow—_

"Clara."

It takes a moment, blinking in the half light, to realise that she has been shaken awake by the Doctor.

"You were dreaming."

"Nightmare," she gasps, touching a wrist to her forehead. Sweat has plastered her tufty hair to her head.

"I could hear."

"I'm sorry. Was I shouting?"

"In here," he adds, putting a finger to his temple, as if that is any kind of explanation.

"Right. Well, I'm sorry for disturbing you—"

"I thought the nightmares had stopped?"

"They had. It's okay. Just a blip."

"You're worrying about something?"

"Just the mission tomorrow. That's normal…"

He isn't listening. His head is held at an angle, eyes narrow as he looks around the sleeping alcove. The holster for her newly acquired pistol is only half-hidden behind her coat. She forces herself not to look, wondering if she can subtly twitch—

Her heart sinks as he reaches out for the weapon, tugging it loose. "Just the mission," he repeats, voice tight.

"…Doctor?" She reaches out for her pistol, afraid to touch.

"Why?" he snaps, pulling it into his chest, out of reach.

"Why do you _think_?" She meets his gaze steadily, in spite of those beetling brows. "I'm _not_ going back."

He looks aghast. "I won't let that happen."

"You _can't_ guarantee that." She sighs at his stricken face. "Doctor… I… what's the difference, really? You're fine with me picking up a sword, using my fists. What's so special about a pistol?"

"Special?" he repeats, blinking. "… Clara. My Clara. You of all people know."

"Know what?"

"You don't be a warrior," he says urgently.

She swallows at her own words. "But _I'm_ not a Doctor," she manages, suddenly hoarse.

"Don't play semantics. You know the difference."

"What-?" But she is cut off by his sudden movement at snake-strike speed: what would have been a ringing slap. Instead, her arm has moved to block his blow, instinctively.

"Self-defence," he says softly, eyes aflame, "a last resort." He brings up his other hand, the one that holds the pistol, raising it until she is looking down the barrel. "Murder."

"It has a stun setting," she says hotly.

He lets go, the weapon dropping onto her bedroll. "That doesn't work against Meanwhile."

"Doctor, to shoot them _is_ defence. They'll _eat_ —"

"They're not in control of what they're doing. You know that. They've been… forced into something terrible by the King."

"Yes, and that's awful, but they've been made into monsters. Killers."

"And that's all they ever can be?"

Her mouth drops open, horror struck. "Are you saying it's _not_? That you can _cure_ them?"

He holds her gaze for a long, hot second. "I don't know," he says as last.

"But you suspect—?"

"Yes. _Yes_ , I suspect."

She swears softly. "Oh, Doctor. You do pick your moments."


End file.
